First, I’d like to thank Tim Ellis for inviting me to discuss housing and escrow topics on this blog as a guest. Being that many readers of this blog want to demystify home ownership and aspire to become homeowners in a meaningful way, my hope is that our collective experience (wife and I) will be…
Category: News
News, current events, etc.
Rents Predicted To Rise… Still
A number of readers pointed out an article in yesterday’s Seattle Times about “multifamily housing” (apartments) that’s full of the usual pep-talk and rah-rah-speak claiming that prices have nowhere to go but up, up, up, and isn’t that just wonderful! With apartment vacancy rates declining and job growth increasing, real-estate investors are snapping up properties…
Balanced June Reporting Outside Seattle
Let’s not forget that you only have to look a little ways outside of the immediate Seattle area to find rational and balanced reporting on the realities of today’s real estate market. “We’re seeing a consistent trend here, a flattening of the market,” he said. “It (the strong housing market) hasn’t come to an end…
The Ballard Conspiracy
Speaking of Ballard… cue the Twilight Zone music… it’s really quite eerie how every month the “angles” in local rags seem to be so in sync. Apparently this month all the clever reporters are focusing in on everyone’s favorite neighborhood: Ballard. Cynthia Creasey and Mack McCoy bought a four-bedroom house in Ballard in 1988 for…
"Your Home Is Now Your Portfolio"
It’s not often that I actually laugh out loud at a news headline, but congratulations to Elizabeth Rhodes, who actually achieved that with the gem “Local homes: Investments that just keep getting hotter.” Forget your home being your castle. Thanks to surging local home prices, your home is now your portfolio. How so? After giving…