As home sales in the Seattle area (and state-wide) plummet and prices stagnate and begin to decline, it looks like government revenues are following suit:
On top of November’s wet weather and the Northwest’s cooling housing market, the state’s top economist had dreary news for state leaders Thursday when he announced that Washington would be taking in about $132 million less than expected in his quarterly revenue forecast.
Washington’s housing and construction sectors are doing better than those in most other states, but ChangMook Sohn said the real estate slowdown is occurring sooner than in the most recent prediction. The subsequent change in the revenue forecast has a lot to do with predicted declines in real estate excise-tax collections.
This is exactly what Mr. Sohn has been warning would happen for some time now (see related posts here). I guess he didn’t get the memo from the Washington Realtors though, because they told me that Washington State has a strong economy and we’re adding tons of new jobs, making our real estate market “the envy of the nation,” and practically unsinkable. (Yes, George beat me to the punch on that joke, but I intend to get a lot of mileage out of these Realtor ads.)
“Though the decline in projected revenue is very small, this forecast reinforces the need to continue to save money to make sure we have the resources to maintain the services expected by Washington citizen,” Gregoire said.
I completely trust the government to manage our money wisely as the housing market continues to drag down state revenues, and the shortfall turns from “very small” to “surprisingly large.” Because saving money is what they’re good at.
(Chris McGann, Seattle P-I, 11.16.2007)