Here’s yet another blue-sky prediction for 2006 that takes the “our prices haven’t risen as fast/much as other areas, so therefore we’re not in a bubble” angle:
Economy-watcher Michael Parks suggests that people worried about a housing bubble in the Puget Sound region get a little perspective.
Sure, house prices have climbed a healthy 14.5 percent over the past year in Seattle, Bellevue and Everett.
They’ve risen 108.1 percent over the past 10 years, the editor and publisher of Marple’s Pacific Northwest Letter told business executives attending a U.S. Bank-sponsored breakfast Thursday.
But compare those figures with the much greater 18.8 percent one-year jump in Los Angeles and Long Beach (181.4 percent over a decade) and the 18.4 percent increase in San Jose (185 percent over a decade), and our area’s growth seems reasonable.
So despite the fact that the housing market has been making unsustainable gains unmatched by any before in history, it’s no big deal because hey, it’s not as dangerous as LA. Sweet.
(Melissa Allison, Seattle Times, 01.13.2006)