If you live in Seattle and don’t own a home, you probably think that the real estate bubble is nothing but trouble. Well it’s about time that the bubble did something for you.
A hot real-estate market is going to help Seattle residents cut their losses as the city shakes off the collapse of the Seattle Monorail Project.
Odds are good that this month’s sell-off of 33 of 34 unused lots — which the SMP purchased for stations, a maintenance base and some tight corners along the track route — will recover at least the $62 million spent to buy them. If so, the monorail’s citywide car-tab tax, which began in 2003, would be repealed by early fall.
…
The liquidation of the monorail dream couldn’t happen at a better time, at least for making money. Commercial property values in King County have increased 14 percent since 2004.“What the monorail has going for it is a real-estate market in the city of Seattle like we’ve never seen,” said Art Wahl, managing director of the commercial real-estate firm CB Richard Ellis. “There’s never been anything close to this. There’s a high demand for real estate, and in truth, not a lot of product.” Wahl’s firm was one of several that vied to serve as SMP’s broker for the land sell-off. GVA Kidder Matthews was selected to handle the land sales.
Of course, if you don’t own a house or a car, or if you live near to but outside of Seattle, the bubble really is nothing but trouble.
(Mike Lindblom, Seattle Times, 03.12.2006)