Author: The Tim

Tim Ellis is the founder of Seattle Bubble. His background in engineering and computer / internet technology, a fondness of data-based analysis of problems, and an addiction to spreadsheets all influence his perspective on the Seattle-area real estate market. Tim also hosts the weekly improv comedy sci-fi podcast Dispatches from the Multiverse.

Another Bubble? Affordability Only Sustained By Low Rates

Posted on by The Tim

Continuing our “Another Bubble?” series, it’s time to take a look at the affordability index. As King County’s median home price has surged from $405,400 in February to $468,000 in July, the affordability index has dropped from slightly above the long-term average to just below 100. An index level above 100 indicates that the monthly…

Another Bubble? Home Prices Rapidly Outgain Incomes

Posted on by The Tim

Continuing the “Another Bubble?” series we began yesterday, let’s take a look at another housing bubble metric: home prices compared to incomes. For this post I’ll be using the Case-Shiller Home Price Index for the Seattle area (which rolls together King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties) and Bureau of Economic Analysis data on per capita incomes…

Another Real Estate Bubble? Price to Rent Ratio Shoots Up

Posted on by The Tim

With home prices approaching or even exceeding their 2007 peak levels in parts of the Seattle area, there has been renewed talk about whether we’re in another housing bubble or not. This week I’d like to go back to the same data I used in 2005 and 2006 to definitively recognize the bubble at a…

Weekly Open Thread (2014-08-11)

Posted on by The Tim

NOTE: If you are subscribed to Seattle Bubble’s RSS feed and are seeing these open threads in the feed, please switch to our official feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/SeattleBubble  Thanks! Here is your open thread for the week of August 11th, 2014. You may post random links and off-topic discussions here. Also, if you have an idea…