"Seattle is Different. We're Totally Immune"

[EastSider]

Regarding the posting

What impact will the stock-market correction have on the local housing market? The last time we saw a major correction (the dot-com bust), the housing market went up quite a bit??

[synthetik]

Oh, that's totally going to happen again.

You are SO right! OMG! LOL. <G>

[T, V & Mr. B.]

No affect, or if any, very minimal, other than one or two people thinking twice. It will be the other way around. More bad news in housing will rpompt selling on the stock market. It will go up and down for a bit unitl the real bad news starts hitting the media.

[Erik]

Oh, man. This public perception thing frustrating! Monday evening I was chatting in the lunchroom with a colleague about the stock market, the economy, and the housing market. I think of this guy (even now) as a sharp, down-to-earth fellow, but when it came to Seattle housing he was spitting out the same old nonsense!

Him: Yes, the housing market is way overinflated. They haven't come near to seeing the worst yet. Just wait until the recession comes!

Me: Yeah, I think it could get pretty ugly. I'm definitely renting for now.

Him: Well, of course prices in the Seattle area aren't going down.

Me: Um...why not?

Him: People are going to keep moving here. They'll always want to live here. And job market is great. There are plenty of high paying jobs.

Me: Sounds kind of like San Diego to me. They're having some trouble in the market there.

Him: San Diego's different.

Me: Why?

Him: Their housing prices are dropping.

What the $@#%?! How am I supposed to respond to that?!

[Alan]

Sounds like a homeowner to me.

In my very limited sample size, I have found that people who own property in Seattle think prices will not go down while people who rent think they will go down.

While there may be some sort of optimistic psychology going on, it may also be the case that the two groups are simply self selecting.

[synthetik]

Public notions that the housing market and economy are fine seem to run rampant no matter where they happen to live.

A friend of mine just moved up here from San Diego and he was shocked to learn that prices had fallen in San Diego.

"What? No way... prices are just going up down there! That's one of the reasons we moved up here."

"I heard that a million people were moving to Seattle in the next 5 years."

I responded "Two years ago a San Diego neighbor of mine told me that 5 Million people were moving to San Diego in the next 10 years. Same old tired arguments, no matter where you move to. It's always 'different'"

He has no savings and really no thought of buying anytime soon (certainly not with these new lending restrictions!), but he's got an opinion anyway.

[Wanderer]

You have to love the circular logic. We have all had those madening conversations with intelligent people, but they just aren't up to date with current housing issues. Not to say that they have to agree that the Seattle market is going to go down, it's just that their talking points are so brittle because they don't spend a ton of time watching/analyzing the Seattle market. It may not be healthy to spend so much time reading blogs as some of us do, but we are at least up to date with every possible issue. 99% of the people who own a home in Seattle right now only (care to) know that the rest of the country is having problems and Seattle isn't. There is no reason for them to dig any deeper if they aren' thinking about selling this year.