https://thetransmetropolitanreview.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/seattle-homeless.jpg?w=491&h=327

https://patch.com/washington/seattle/king-county-homelessness-5-percent-2020-annual-count-finds

NPR Poll: Financial Pain From Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Much, Much Worse’ Than Expected
September 9, 20205:00 AM ET
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/09/909669760/npr-poll-financial-pain-from-coronavirus-pandemic-much-much-worse-than-expected

Thanks for this data. What advice would you give to a young person with median income trying to buy their first home in the Seattle area on an FHA loan? Buy? Wait? Move?

I don’t have $150K to put down 20%, and Seattle home price trends have greatly outpaced my income in the last 3-5 years. Which means I am actually saving less each year, as I need to devote more income to rent hikes.

Change jobs, or move away? Not trying to be sarcastic or unsupportive here–we were chasing the bottom of the market for years and barely scraping by. We decided to adapt to the costs by getting jobs that paid enough to live here. One of us changed fields a bit to a higher paying one (tech), and the other of us grew a business more aggressively and specialized it in order to charge premium prices. I know it’s easier said than done, but you CAN choose to move elsewhere. We’ve certainly considered it but have opted to stay every time, since we’re motivated about our careers and want to live in the PNW. Why do you want to stay in Seattle?

===
&

“Will the forest fires 🔥 and smoke end…
…the hot real estate market?

Here is the September Wenatchee Valley Real Estate Market Update.
Keep watching to hear predictions on how and why prices will change
after the election.”
(remote-workspace, migration, etc …)
Wenatchee Valley September 2020 Real Estate Market Update
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1582726095233390

Inflation – It’s unclear if printing will cause inflation. Japan has the highest debt to GDP ratio at 237% (US 107%.) Yet Japan has not experienced measurable inflation.

Asset prices – Japan’s asset prices are still below their peaks reached in 1990. So home prices may stay stagnant or even decline.

If you sell your home at a lower price in a few years for some reason, you won’t be able to deduct the (tax) loss.

Japan’s real estate market is TOTALLY different than the US. Fundamentally different. Most buildings depreciate in Japan rapidly BECAUSE the value is in the land – not the structure.

I’ve owned and sold a property in Japan.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-of-homeless-people-in-the-us/

https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/seattle-wa

Interesting comments about inflation as related to current world economy –

“….What consumer price inflation does in today’s developed economies is destroy the purchasing power of the currency, and thereby the purchasing power of already struggling labor paid in that currency, and thereby dent consumption and create more social frustrations and inequities, that would then be addressed with even more borrowing and printing and inflation?…”
.
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/09/15/why-the-hoped-for-solution-to-out-of-control-government-debts-wont-work-this-time/

And now we see how the Fed causes homelessness.

I don’t have $150K to put down 20%, and Seattle home price trends have greatly outpaced my income in the last 3-5 years. Which means I am actually saving less each year, as I need to devote more income to rent hikes.

Stick with your namesake software, and before you post here, if you assert questions of verifiable fact, please try to get things straight up and correct before you waste everyone’s time with your fear based bs.

“… A bit of rain can’t erase this haze as fires continue
Our first rain of September did little to wash away the smoky air, which could stick around until the weekend as fires rage across Washington. Why didn’t forecasts give us a clear view of how long we’d be gasping this noxious air? Here’s how the models got it wrong and why the smoke is so obstinate. The blazes have burned more than 790,000 acres in Washington — the size of nearly 15 Seattles. We’ve pulled together more comparisons to help you picture how big the fires are. Plus, you can check their status on this map, and find today’s live updates here. (Photo: Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)..”

SWE’s take: Avoid going outdoors for long walks folks, the smoke is so thick it can easily make ya dizzy after a couple mile walk…keep your car in good maintenance, its all ya got to ride out the smokes [I do hope it has an outdoor air ventilator filter too….bikes and motor-cycles are also dangerous rides now.

“… UW is planning extensive COVID-19 testing this fall and expects to find hundreds of positive cases in the first round. A cautionary tale awaits at another university that had a tiptop coronavirus plan … except that its students partied on. Find today’s live updates here.
The virus’ second wave is hitting sooner than expected in the U.K., where some people must travel hundreds of miles to find a test.
What are the different types of coronavirus tests? Here’s how the three main varieties work, and our updating list of where to get tested. ..”

SWE’s take: No symptom flu still tests positive and is the lion’s share of new cases now.

https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/three-quarters-of-people-with-flu-have-no-symptoms/

“…Seattle is shortchanging bridges’ maintenance and allowing them to deteriorate, according to a new audit that considered 77 bridges and concluded that less than one-third are in good condition. The West Seattle Bridge, above, wasn’t even classified as the worst one until cracking prompted its emergency closure. (Photo: Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)..”

SWE’s take: Civil Engineering Safety Engineering in Seattle is just a waste of money..LOL

Good News: The air may be clearer now in Seattle:

https://durkan.seattle.gov/2020/09/due-to-unhealthy-air-quality-emergency-smoke-shelter-to-remain-open-until-tuesday-morning-beaches-boat-ramps-parks-and-playfields-remain-closed-through-monday/

The Puget Sound Air Agency begs to differ and continues warnings through this Thursday for Seattle. Who’s right? Time will tell.

Calm Down Don, I’m skilled at engineering stress analysis; are you? Thanks for the link, so steel plates [like a modular built home] hold up the Ferris Wheel? That link also showed [old and ancient pier] the area around it [Ferris Wheel walk way] was not built up with newer steel plates. I’m not sure you can test the deflections from the Ferris Wheel to the old pier posts, but either can you. What’s the safety factor of construction? Unknown, like the failure predicting on a cracked bridge…remember the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, it wasn’t load protection that prevented it, it was simple oscillations that resonated that destroyed it…simple oscillating waves can destroy structures too.

https://seattlewaterfront.org/seattle-waterfront-piers-map/

What’s your degree in? History or just a high school diploma?

At some point ya gotta use experienced scientists, instead of unknown “Safety Engineering” precautions the uninformed allege. Ask any professionally certified Civil Engineer.

As Tim (correctly) pointed out, home prices are being propped up by ultra-low interest rate.

I would argue that if you had 100 notes and the value was 1 unit/1 note and you printed 900 more notes, your value would be .1 units/1 note. Read “Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell. Start at the beginning and understand the fundamentals of economics.

I’ll do it below to be clear because this is important:

Scenario #1 before printing 900 more notes
Country value = 100 units
# notes = 100
Value = 100 units/100 notes = 1 unit/1 note

Scenario #2 after printing 900 more notes
Country value = 100 units
# notes = 1000
Value = 100 units/1000 notes = .1 unit/1 note


for (var anchor of document.getElementsByTagName("a")) {
if (anchor.innerText === "softwarengineer") {
anchor.parentElement.parentElement.parentElement.setAttribute("style", "display: none");
}
}


And then hit enter.

You’ll have to do this every time you reload the page, but I figured it would be better than nothing.

Asset prices – Japan’s asset prices are still below their peaks reached in 1990. So home prices may stay stagnant or even decline.

If you sell your home at a lower price in a few years for some reason, you won’t be able to deduct the (tax) loss.

Glad you’re back. I’ve been looking in every month or two since you stopped posting to see if you’d resume and glad to see that you have.

NNG.

Once again you open your chicken little beak and squak with no -fact hyperbolic claims about local infrastructure:

“SWE’s take: I read somewhere that the pier posts holding up that heavy steel Ferris wheel were put in a 100 years ago…no wonder its likely warping and crumbling apart like the bridge near by”

https://www.mansonconstruction.com/what-we-do/marine-construction/pier-57-piling-and-ferris-wheel-foundation

When the electricity or cable goes off I’m screwed…I keep an $8/mo Go Phone handy when that happens…

The bundles are much cheaper than buying each service separately…check it out…

I couldn’t have said it better ;-)

This morning a couple LA cops were sitting in their patrol car probably gobbling down Dunkin’ Doughnuts [cops love doughnuts], minding their own business, and a wild eyed shooter stealthily approached the police car [its on video movie BTW] and shot both of them in their car. Political fallout too today….Trump asked Biden why he didn’t comment on the senseless “cop shooting” violence….I guess Biden just retreated back in his basement with his mouth zipped.

Time to guzzle down a cup of Dunkin’ Doughnuts coffee and read the brief:

“… Part of Seattle’s Pier 58 collapses, injuring 2
Alarms rang out and workers scrambled to evacuate yesterday as a 15,000-square-foot chunk of the pier plunged into Elliott Bay. Two men were rescued from the water and taken to Harborview Medical Center. Demolition crews had been working on the deteriorating pier, known as Waterfront Park, which is adjacent to the Seattle Aquarium. (Photo: Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times)..”

SWE’s take: I read somewhere that the pier posts holding up that heavy steel Ferris wheel were put in a 100 years ago…no wonder its likely warping and crumbling apart like the bridge near by…the whole ancient Seattle waterfront pier assemblies need replacement to open again? How many billions will that cost? Raise all the property taxes, that should fix it…LOL

Good News: Its SWE’s birthday today….you gotta be nice to SWE on his birthday….LOL…I’m going to Black Angus for my free $23 birthday dinner and meeting with my Lt Col brother in law and my sister…indoor dining too…LOL

There’s this fellow, but dated even before the previously posted Housing Crash info/video:

The 2021 Housing Crash
Jul 31, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF1H1qfW15Y

Hi Erik,
Yes, it appears RE will benefit from incoming inflation.
(I haven’t had time to find counter-info to that recently … but will continue to keep a look-out. )
—
“In an interview posted at the TheMarketNZZ website, financial historian Edward Chancellor says we could be nearing a period of “quite substantial inflation” the result of central bank policies and warns that there is almost nowhere to hide. “Financial assets,” he goes on “do not respond so much to the level of inflation but to the change in inflation rates. When inflation is taking off, gold tends to do quite well. I try to keep at least 80% of my wealth in real assets rather than in paper assets. I don’t own any long-dated government bonds. I can’t think of constructing a portfolio that would protect you under all circumstances. I actually don’t think prudent investing is possible these days.”

https://themarket.ch/interview/edward-chancellor-prudent-investing-is-impossible-these-days-ld.2606

RE: David @ 29 –
Yeah, he’s a young guy. I watch Jim Cramer too. switched from cable to firestick. When I sit down to relax, I watch these guys on my tv.

Blurtman @ 31

I subscribe to YouTube Premium for now. Cable was canceled over 6 years ago. CNN not watched in at least 10 years (it was a great station when Ted Turner owned it). Listen to Fox News on Sirius.

I’m unsure that Meet Kevin’s insight works outside of an area where real estate is pressured up (ergo Santa Barbara). Creating instant equity of $100k seems it might be easier where prices start in the $400s-$500s.

I switched from cable to firestick. When I sit down to relax, I watch these guys on my tv.

10 years ago he was 17.

If you’re saving for retirements too, bear in mind that your 401Ks in those safe long-term CDs, makes like the best 10 yr CD interest rate at the 1.0% joke level too. Close the “locked” account IMO and put it in a $CASH$ Money Market savings account instead.

https://www.bankrate.com/banking/cds/best-10-year-cd-rates/

Conversely, $CASH$ Money Market Accounts in unlocked savings accounts and income taxes already paid are close to 1.0% anyway if you choose a good bank:

“… Highest Rate: First Internet Bank: 0.81% APY
High Rate: CIT Bank: 0.75% APY
High Rate: TIAA Bank: 0.75% APY*
High Rate: Sallie Mae: 0.70% APY
High Rate: BMO Harris: 0.60% APY

10 Yr CDs are a complete joke IOWs…there is always a Yin to a Yang…

“…How to reduce your exposure to unhealthy air from Washington state’s wildfire smoke. That cloth mask won’t help..”

SWE’s Take: Just stay inside, even driving a car with a good flu mask means a ventilator blowing smoke in your face…its hopeless, think about it, smoke goes right through the side mask gap holes the air is sucked in…my car has a ventilator air filter, most don’t…

Good News: Seattle Home Buyers should be back in the game and outside by Tuesday, when the air pollution warning reportedly ends…

I would imagine printing more money and giving it to people and businesses would also cause inflation as more money added to the system causes the dollar to be worth less than it was causing inflation. I’m hoping they extend mortgage forbearance for 4 more years, which qualifies as giving money to people and businesses.

Other than keeping interest rates where they are, what else can the admin/fed do to keep this from crashing?