via Mish:"We are at greater risk of a total meltdown due to a deflationary collapse than we were in 2007." http://is.gd/3XFvc # Wow, nearly 1 in 5 downtown Seattle offices are sitting empty right now, and vacancy "hasn't peaked." http://is.gd/3YwWH # Time to eliminate gov. subsidies that have turned homeownership into "an economic ball and…
Reporting Roundup Flashback: September 2007
Let’s look back a couple years to see what local real estate agents were saying a few months after the price peak in Seattle, and about a year into the housing decline across most of the rest of the country. Here’s a selection of choice quotes from some October 2007 articles. Note that local home…
$8k Tax Credit: Inefficient, Expensive, Economically Stupid
The intensity of the push from a couple of major national lobbying groups (NAR and NAHB) to extend and/or expand the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit seems to have increased since we last discussed the topic on these pages. With the supposed end of the program coming up in about seven weeks, now seems like…
The Mythical Teeming Hordes of “Pent-Up Buyers”
We’ve been hearing a lot of speculation recently that goes something along these lines: There is basically this enormous teeming horde of potential home buyers out there lurking on the sidelines for no good reason. All we need to do is come up with the right concoction of incentives to get these pent-up buyers off…
September Reporting Roundup: Get your SURGE RALLY on!
Time for the monthly reporting roundup, where I read all the local paper rehashes of the NWMLS press release so you don’t have to. First up, an excerpt from the NWMLS press release itself: Northwest MLS brokers agree "there’s a lot to be optimistic about" “There’s a lot to be optimistic about,” according to one…