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…
Tag: Seattle_Times
September Reporting Roundup: Let the Games Begin
Okay, the biggest real story this month: plummeting sales, resulting in a record-high “months of supply.” The fake story: dropping median prices—which is most likely at least partly an illusion (so far), which can be largely attributed to… you guessed it: the plummeting sales. Let’s see what the news outlets chose to focus on… There…
Rents Reverting to Mean, Condos Repartmenting
I should at least mention the local news reports about the latest Dupre + Scott rental survey. Here’s the meat of the report, courtesy of Aubrey Cohen at the P-I: The King County vacancy rate hit 3.8 percent this month, down from 3.9 percent in March and 4.2 percent in September 2006, according to Dupre…
Subtle Headline / Photo Combo
From above the fold on today’s Seattle Times front page: Click to view pdf How soon do you suppose we can expect an article explicitly making the claim that is subtly implied by this headline / photo combo? Let’s play “predict the headline.” Here’s my guess: Soaring Loonie Strengthens Seattle Real Estate. Of course, the…
August Reporting Roundup
Here’s the usual roundup of the NWMLS press release echo chamber for this month. As expected, most of the focus is on price, price, price. As long as the median price keeps going up, expect more of the same. Bibeka Shrestha, Seattle Times: Median price for house in Seattle tops $500,000 The median price for…