Organizations like the National Ass. of Realtors and the National Ass. of Home Builders have been throwing around estimates of how many sales have been “stimulated” by the $8,000 tax credit nationwide, and a recent editorial by Washington State Treasurer James McIntire in favor of the inefficient, expensive, and economically stupid program throws out a…
Seattle-Area Foreclosures Appear to Resume Pre SB-5810 Rise
Time for our September update on Foreclosure activity in King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties. First up, the Notice of Trustee Sale summary: September 2009 King: 796 NTS, up 31% YOY Snohomish: 421 NTS, up 42% YOY Pierce: 479 NTS, down 11% YOY Not surprisingly, as the newly-mandated 30-day pipeline begins to fill up, foreclosures seem…
Rent vs. Buy Comparisons: Have the excesses been removed?
Let’s try another rent vs. buy exercise to see if “all the excesses have already been removed” as some have claimed. Rather than delve into depth on a specific randomly-selected Seattle-area neighborhood, let’s instead look at what a specific type of house might cost you in multiple Seattle-area neighborhoods to rent vs. how much it…
Desperately Searching for a Truly Positive Sign
[Warning: The following commentary is only marginally related to real estate / housing.] Despite what some of my readers in the real estate industry may think, I’m a generally upbeat, optimistic kind of guy. I like to believe that things will be better tomorrow than they are today; that American ingenuity and hard work can…
Lawrence Yun: “Home values have overshot downward”
In case there is any doubt about whether NAR chief “economist” Lawrence Yun is just as much of a shameless price-boosting shill as his predecessor David Lereah, I present some excerpts from a post he made on Friday regarding the inefficient, expensive, and economically stupid homebuyer tax credit: Unleashing Pent-Up Housing Demand and Sustainable Economic…