P-I columnist Bill Virgin sees the increasing unaffordability of housing in the Puget Sound as just another example of the big squeeze being put on the middle class: Billboard not yet spotted along state Route 99: Will the last middle-class family leaving Seattle please turn out the lights? The future — or lack thereof —…
Tag: Virgin
World-class not "merely boasting how darn great we are."
If I were the egocentric type, I’d probably think that none other than the P-I’s Bill Virgin is a Seattle Bubble reader. A mere five days after I dispelled the notion that Seattle is “world class,” Bill delivers the exact same message to a broader audience in today’s column: So what makes a world-class city?…
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…
Seattle Rides High on Interest-Only Loans
It seems that in the Seattle area, a lot of people are confident that there’s not a bubble, as evidenced by the ridiculous loans that they’re taking out: …38 percent of recent home mortgages in the Seattle-Bellevue- Everett market…were interest-only loans. 38 percent for the first three months of 2005, up from 37 percent for…