The Seattle Job Market Myth

[rose-colored-coolaid]

We are frequently told how Seattle is adding so many jobs and population. , but WA state doesn't even make the top 15. The list only goes to 15 by the way.

[aldreth]

But everyone works at microsoft or boeing!!! heh

[Markor]

Meanwhile, Microsoft recently signed on for another 500K sq. ft. of leased space in Bellevue. By 2010 or so they'll be using 1.8 million more sq. ft. than they are now, just on the Eastside. Room for 10K new employees, but staff is so crammed in now they surely won't hire anyone, shareholders be damned.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

I know, I know MSFT! MSFT! MSFT!!!

Look at this list for a second though.

1. South Dakota
2. Idaho
3. Wyoming
4. Nebraska
5. Utah
6. Hawaii
7. North Dakota
8. Virginia
9. Montana
10. New Hampshire
11. New Mexico
12. Delaware
13. Maryland
14. Iowa
15. Vermont

There's nary a CA, FL, NY, WA, MA, AZ, et all on the list. This is simply a ranking of unemployment rates by state. Well, Seattle has a higher unemployment rate than every state on this list, including both Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, and Nebraska. These are hardly bastions for overpriced real estate. Mostly they aren't even coastal states at all.

[Markor]

[deejayoh]

Interesting discussion, not sure of it's relevance to home prices. in 2006, the Seattle MSA finally got back to the employment level of 2000. So there was basically no net job creation for 6 years. Yet in the same time frame, home prices rose 72%. The same trend held nation-wide.

It seems pretty clear to me - based on data - that job growth has been a non-factor in driving real estate prices for the whole of the boom. Why anyone thinks we can count on it now to sustain current price levels is beyond me.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Markor]

[mike2]

The highest state on the list with plunging RE prices is... Virginia!

Prices in Fairfax County have dropped so dramatically that we're now at the same level as Seattle. (gasp)

I can't complain. Prices in my neighborhood were at the $500K level a year and a half ago. Today? The house across the street is listed at $375K. On noes. We'z be ghetto now. I don't see a bottom until we hit $275K.

(median income for this zip code is $110K/yr)