As a number of readers have pointed out in the comments, WSU’s Washington Center for Real Estate Research has released their latest quarterly statistics. There’s not much new in there for anyone that has been following the monthly NWMLS releases, but it’s at least worth mentioning. Here’s a blurb from the Associated Press report, courtesy…
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July Jobs: Mixed Bag
Since the housing market is so closely related to whether people can find decent jobs, here is the latest in our continuing series on Washington State employment statistics. Things are looking up… sort of. Washington’s jobs picture was mixed in July, and revised data shows that the first half of 2006 wasn’t quite as red-hot…
Picture A Healthy Housing Market: Yakima
This story about the Yakima housing market caught my eye because my wife and I stopped in Yakima yesterday on the way home from our 3-day weekend trip. I thought it would be worth posting here because it’s an interesting contrast to the type of piece you find in the Seattle-area papers. Notice the tone…
Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Have you noticed how touchy some people can be when it comes to discussing the subject of whether homes are overpriced or not? It’s almost gotten as bad as politics. For the best/worst example of this, head over to the Craigslist housing forum (if you dare). I read it occasionally, but honestly not very often,…
Seattle: Smug, Arrogant, Delusional?
The Seattle P-I Virtual Editorial Board highlighted an excellent comment to an editorial about the $1.6 billion tax package. A reader going by the handle "Face Reality" made the following insightful observations: Seattle has no coherent "tax plan": Or finance, revenue, fiscal or spending plans for that matter. It hasn’t for over 20 years. A…