Category: News

Don’t miss Bill Virgin’s latest column in the Seattle P-I today. The subject is the Sonics’ sale, but check out the reference to Seattle real estate that he managed to slip in there: Owning a sports franchise is like buying a Monet painting. The immediate payoff is psychological, not financial; in fact, ownership is likely…

It’s that time of the month again… time for the latest state job statistics, and time for everyone’s favorite cliché, good news / bad news. The good news is more jobs were added in June than in May. The bad news is that job growth is still significantly slower than it was just six months…

I just know you’ll love this opinion piece in today’s Seattle Times: Rising interest rates have cooled the housing explosion around much of the country, but in the Puget Sound region, real estate remains king. And the queen is the over-the-top but never disappointing model home. I’m not referring to the minipalaces laid out in…

Today, the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it reached yet another settlement with a large national lender and two large builders for violating the Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act (RESPA). One of RESPA’s functions is to protect consumers by prohibiting kickbacks in real estate that artificially increase the premiums…

Given that one alleged reason for skyrocketing housing prices is government land use regulation, it is worth mentioning that land use restrictions in King County and across Washington State may be loosening in the coming year. In what may be an attempt to stave off the state-wide property rights initiative, the King County Executive is…