The latest (third quarter) personal income stats from the Bureau of Economic Analysis came out today. Washington State showed a 0.6% increase from the second quarter to the third, but a record 1.5% year-over-year drop from the third quarter 2008. I thought it would be interesting to compare this measure to home prices. Keep in…
Changes on the horizon at Seattle Bubble…
As 2009 winds down and the real estate market enters winter hibernation, now seems like a good time to talk about some of the changes on the horizon here at Seattle Bubble. First up, a subject that we’ve discussed a few times here in the past: name change. “Seattle Bubble” is a name that made…
Still Searching for the Home Price Bottom Around Seattle
A few people have asked for another checkup on our bottom-calling series from February, in which we explored six different methods of forecasting the bottom for Seattle-area home prices. Not much has changed since our most recent checkup in July, when prices as measured by the Case-Shiller Index were 22.5% off the peak (May data),…
It’s a Great Time to Rent
Here’s another new site to add to your list of where to search for rentals in Seattle: Zillow. Zillow announced yesterday that they have added rental listings to their site. Since this is a brand new feature, and they apparently have not made any partnership deals to pre-seed it with data, there aren’t currently any…
Quantifying Cumulative Government Kickbacks for Homebuyers
I thought it might be useful to visualize just how much the government is involved in the housing market. Let’s look at how much a homebuyer receives via capital gains tax excemption for home sales, mortgage interest deduction, deductability of points paid on mortgage, and first-time buyers tax credit over 5 years, 15 years, and…