Remember that slowdown in state revenues that we were warned about by our state’s chief economist ChangMook Sohn last year? Well guess what? It’s here! Washington’s construction industry continues to expand, but real estate tax collections are $18 million below expected levels. The state Revenue Forecast Council says taxable real estate activity in the past…
News Quickie: Foreclosures Decrease Nationally, Increase Locally
Aubrey Cohen has really been picking up the pace lately, with the new blog and an increased number of articles. One of his latest articles mentions that the rate of new foreclosures is actually recently increasing in Seattle at a faster rate than the country as a whole. Although the Seattle area continued to have…
News Quickie: Snohomish Building Boom Over
First up in today’s news quickies is word from Snohomish County that—guess what?— the housing boom has ended. No, seriously. The party is over. Snohomish County’s housing boom is over. Builders are laying off workers, houses are staying on the market longer, and the overall number of permit applications has dropped by hundreds compared to…
Boom, you see this house?
And the “Best Comment of the Week” award goes to rose-colored-coolaid for his gem on yesterday’s post: Anyone else starting to notice that the ‘bubbles are forever’ positions are starting to sound a lot more like Jon Madden? “Boom, you see this house? What it wants to do is appreciate in value. So it’s going…
P-I: “Seattle is not immune”
Hey, it looks like somebody on the P-I editorial board is a secret fan of Seattle Bubble (or at the very least, they read Thursday’s post). Check out yesterday’s “P-I Editorial”: Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a comprehensive look at loan data for what it called, “The United States of Subprime.” The newspaper…