A pair of articles printed Saturday in the Seattle Times show some slight tightening of lending practices in our state. Nineteen states, including Washington, and the District of Columbia have moved quickly to warn state-regulated lenders about the hazards to consumers from nontraditional mortgages. Tens of thousands of state-licensed lenders and mortgage brokers are affected…
December Reporting Roundup
After just nine months of increasing YOY home inventory and fourteen months of declining YOY home sales, the local media has apparently taken notice. Even Elizabeth Rhodes at the Seattle Times can’t ignore the slowing trend: In fact, buyers weren’t racing to make offers anywhere in the central Puget Sound area last month, according to…
Inventory Up, Sales Down (Sound Familiar?)
December stats are available from the NWMLS. Here’s a summary of the “residential” figures: Active Listings: up 23% YOYPending Sales: down 9% YOYMedian Closed Price: $440,000, up 12% YOY. I’ll update this post later today with the usual graph and links to the updated spreadsheet and the NWMLS pdfs. Update: Sorry about the delay. Here’s…
What to Blame? Not Growth Management.
Here’s a guest editorial from today’s Seattle Times that says something I’ve been saying all along: The “home prices are high because we’re running out of land because of Growth Management” argument doesn’t hold water. The cost of housing is spiraling out of control in many parts of the Puget Sound region. King County is…
2007 Optimism, Part III: Some Cracks Appear
This is the last post in this impromptu series. There were just so many articles out there full of “expert” quotes and predictions about the Puget Sound’s economic outlook for 2007. Here are three more articles that discuss the interaction of the local housing market with the greater local economic picture. Surprisingly, the housing affordability…