{"id":2567,"date":"2008-08-28T10:34:20","date_gmt":"2008-08-28T17:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2010-01-18T19:51:13","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T03:51:13","slug":"local-economy-in-for-a-long-slog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/28\/local-economy-in-for-a-long-slog\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Economy in for a &#8220;Long Slog&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jon Talton wrote a great article for the Times a few days ago that goes deeper than the usual &#8220;Boeing!  Microsoft!  Pink Ponies!&#8221; type articles and explores all the ways the Seattle region is exposed to the slowing economy: <a title=\"For local economy, it'll be a long slog\" href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/jontalton\/2008138327_biztaltoncol26.html\">For local economy, it&#8217;ll be a long slog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;the national slowdown is finally hitting the Puget Sound region, slowing job creation as well as pressuring would-be home-sellers, the construction industry and credit-strapped homeowners.<\/p>\n<p>As recently as last year, employment growth here was more than twice the national average, according to Dick Conway, a Seattle economist and co-publisher of the Puget Sound Economic Forecaster. Now, he forecasts it will decelerate from a peak of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2007 to less than 2 percent this year. On a quarter-to-quarter basis, job creation could be essentially flat, something backed up by recent state job numbers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s nice to read a somewhat realistic article once in a while, instead of constantly being fed the feel-good fluff stories about how special and different we are in Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>What are the chances of a state like Washington&#8230; avoiding a recession?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;the economic model of Pacific Northwest economies maintained by Jeremy Piger, associate professor of economics at the University of Oregon, showed a 99.4 percent chance of recession for Washington in its latest reading. The model is based on data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So you&#8217;re telling me there&#8217;s a chance&#8230; Yeah!<\/p>\n<p>My one problem is that Talton quotes Dick Conway as some sort of expert on the local economy and housing.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The picture did change substantially with housing,&#8221; Conway said. &#8220;Ours held up pretty well for a while. We&#8217;ve finally succumbed.&#8221; Price appreciation has stalled and inventory is swelling as potential buyers try to time the bottom of the already favorable market.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nConway compares today&#8217;s climate to 2001&#8217;s and uses the term &#8220;rubber-band effect.&#8221; The faster you drop into recession, the faster you bounce out. This has been a slow slide. He said the Puget Sound region may touch bottom in the next few months and begin growing again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure why he would be quoting Dick Conway as any sort of expert, considering how off base he has been with <a title=\"Predictions: 2007 Revisited, 2008 Prognosticated\" href=\"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/17\/predictions-2007-revisited-2008-prognosticated\/\">his 2008 real estate predictions<\/a> so far this year.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Conway anticipates average Puget Sound-region home prices will decline less than 1 percent next year, and sales will be down about 5 percent, before rebounding in 2008.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Let&#8217;s see&#8230;  According to NWMLS July data, &#8220;Puget Sound-region&#8221; (King, Pierce, Snohomish, Kitsap, &amp; Thurston Counties) average prices are already down nearly 5 percent, while sales are down over <strong>35 percent<\/strong>.  Even if you just look at King\/Pierce\/Snohomish, prices are down over 3 percent and sales have dropped 37 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line seems to be that the local economy is not bulletproof, despite what the papers and real estate agents have been saying for the last few years.<\/p>\n<p>(<em>Jon Talton, <a title=\"For local economy, it'll be a long slog\" href=\"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/jontalton\/2008138327_biztaltoncol26.html\">Seattle Times<\/a>, 08.26.2008<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jon Talton wrote a great article for the Times a few days ago that goes deeper than the usual &#8220;Boeing! Microsoft! Pink Ponies!&#8221; type articles and explores all the ways the Seattle region is exposed to the slowing economy: For local economy, it&#8217;ll be a long slog. &#8230;the national slowdown is finally hitting the Puget&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[21,1115,13,370,14,108,278],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","tag-conway","tag-economy","tag-job_growth","tag-local-economy","tag-predictions","tag-recession","tag-talton"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Local Economy in for a &quot;Long Slog&quot; \u2022 Seattle Bubble<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/28\/local-economy-in-for-a-long-slog\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Local Economy in for a &quot;Long Slog&quot; \u2022 Seattle Bubble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Jon Talton wrote a great article for the Times a few days ago that goes deeper than the usual &#8220;Boeing! Microsoft! 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