Here are a few relevant news stories that have popped into my inbox in the last few days: Associated Press: Wash. revenue down, but recession may be softening Seattle P-I: Housing recovery depends on jobs, banker says Associated Press: Wash. unemployment rate stayed same in April Tacoma News-Tribune: Turning little boxes into living space Everett…
How-To: Sell Your Home in a Down Market
We spend a lot of time on here with posts directed toward helping home buyers to do their research and make smart decisions, but the housing market is made up of buyers and sellers, so let’s turn our attention toward home sellers. Just a few short years ago, the home-selling process went something like this:…
King County Home Prices & Affordability 1950-2009 Q1
A reader pointed out that I had not provided an updated chart of the long-term (50+ year) trend of local home prices since I originally posted my research in February 2008. So, here’s an updated look at the long-term trends in local home prices and affordability: So much for Steve Tytler‘s famous “stair step” theory…
A Few Different Takes on Seattle-Area Home Prices
A commenter on this week’s poll requested a graph of the total monthly dollar volume of all NWMLS-reported closed sales. So, here it is: Since prices are still higher than 2000-2004, I was actually not expecting this year to show up so low. I also found it interesting how closely 2005, 2006, and the first…
PSBJ: Local Banks Feeling the Regulatory Squeeze
Over at the Puget Sound Business Journal, reporter Kirsten Grind posted an interesting story today on their recently-launched BizTalk blog: Crackdown on HomeStreet Bank comes as a surprise Washington state regulators don’t seem to have much patience these days for our struggling community banks and are increasingly slapping them with cease-and-desist orders to force a…