Tag: Uncategorized

Here’s an interesting/amusing little blurb from The Stranger: The city council’s housing committee voted May 16 to put off a motion that would grant $1.5 million in tax breaks to a University District developer in exchange for "affordable" rental units that would cost nearly $200 more than the average rent for the neighborhood. The average…

Let’s talk about jobs for a minute. Not the iPod selling, Pixar-owning kind, but the working for a living kind. I’m going to keep this really basic. Jobs make people money. People use money to buy things. One thing that people buy is houses. Therefore, in my opinion, one good indicator of what the housing…

This is rich. A little blurb in the Seattle Times on Saturday pointed out that the cable network HGTV is adding three (or maybe four) new shows focusing on—you guessed it—real estate. Check out the sidebar: A new HGTV show called "My House is Worth What?" is coming to Seattle to find folks who’d like…

There’s an interesting pair of stories in today’s Seattle Times Real Estate section. The first article sings the praises of buying dumpy houses in crime-ridden neighborhoods. (Okay maybe that’s an exaggeration.) Many first-time buyers swiftly learn that if they want to get into a home they’ll have to make accommodations. Although there are several types…

Here’s a topic that we haven’t discussed much here: Growth Management. Some people argue that aggressive growth management policies are responsible for much of King County’s ridiculous run-up in prices. A reader pointed me toward a 2001 article published by a group called the Washington Research Council, in which they argued that King County’s growth…