Local blogging star Stefan Sharkansky points out an interesting disconnect between the city of Seattle’s stated goal of “making housing more affordable” and their actions, which are apparently to give a little and take a lot: Seattle City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck wants to inspire more people to live downtown by “making housing more affordable“ How…
Gambling On Office Space In Bellevue
Here’s another tidbit about commercial real estate in the Seattle area. Quite appropriately, the headline uses the word “gambling” to describe what’s going on with office buildings in Bellevue: Spec development, as in constructing an office building without pre-lease commitments on the gamble that it will attract tenants upon completion, is the new buzzword among…
Realtors: Bubble Talk Not Trendy
This article doesn’t really relate directly to the Seattle area, but it was in a Seattle area paper, and there’s a tidbit in there that I thought was rather amusing, so I decided to post it here anyway. Mark Nash, a Coldwell Banker broker and real estate author whose book “1001 Tips for Buying &…
One More December Take
The Olympian comes in a day late to the party with what I would call a cautiously pessimistic report on December’s numbers: Fewer homes sold in South SoundMarket has room to slide, real estate watchers say After 11 months of red-hot South Sound home sales in 2005, sales dropped by double digits in December, raising…
Press Optimism Beginning To Fade?
With the lull that has set in on housing this winter in the Seattle area, the news reports about the dead time are almost more interesting than the housing news itself. For example, take the four stories in today’s papers about December’s housing numbers. Here are the headlines: Housing prices keep rising as sales slow…