Business Journal on Seattle vs. San Diego
I got a news alert for this story from the Puget Sound Business Journal: How King County dodged mortgage mess compared to San Diego
But as you can see, everything beyond the first few paragraphs is behind a subscriber wall. Anybody got a subscription and want to send me the full story? I'd love to see their reasoning.
Thanks!
But as you can see, everything beyond the first few paragraphs is behind a subscriber wall. Anybody got a subscription and want to send me the full story? I'd love to see their reasoning.
Thanks!
Comments
The upshot:
- People in San Diego are more stupid, so they took out more subprime loans. Curiously the only statistic Kirsten Grind uses to defend this the education levels, not the number of subprime loans.
- The growth management act stopped developers from building crazily. She quotes the number of permits issued during the boom-boom years in each county. I can't verify her stats on Crellin's website. While there wasn't the run-up in permits that SD reportedly saw, we did have some substantial blips, particularly in Q1 07, and she should have also looked at Pierce and Snohomish, not just King.
- Foreclosures have been much worse over the last year there than here. Well, yeah. Because they are a year ahead in declines. We'll see our foreclosures soon.
I agree that SD went higher and will fall lower, but their SD prof's conclusion that SD is still trying to find the bottom whereas Seattle is through it already is just a bunch of speculative nonsense.
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
Tel: 206-366-3333
also, Borders and Larry's Market.
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/CA ... icing.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/WA ... icing.html
"Vacancy rates down, rents up at Seattle apartments"
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/ ... ily32.html
Off-topic - Re: biliruben's signature picture.
I looked at your pic and thought: "What is that, a shrew?" Did a Google Image Search for shrew and ta-da, first result--an elephant shrew. Hooray for zoology!
The neighborhood is full of nosy, grouchy old Shrews who's husbands worked themselves to death so Lovey could live her last days on the ridge.
That little beastie doesn't look real, does it?
He's not dangerous.
Ms. "Grind" is whistling past the graveyard with that happy talk piece of cheerleading....
One thing, Seattle has trailed the market by about 18 months, but I am now forming the opinion that we are "making up time." In a lot of other markets, the crash started with a "will they or won't they decline" meme. Here in Seattle, we're only really 9 months in and a swath of people seem to have already accepted it's a declining market. Look on redfin, prices are getting marked down (albeit not by much) after less than 30 days on the market. Some are marked down in the first 2 weeks. That can't be normal.
Even though our decline started 18 mos late, I'm going to predict we hit bottom only 9 mos after the rest of the market. I'm curious if anyone else has had similar thoughts.
I realize I am responding to an old post, but I think the past two months confirm your estimate from June. I am sensing some properties are capitulating. It is not enough to move the region's numbers, but I sense some desperation from sellers.
Although the Seattle region peak was much later, our decline may be steeper and faster.
Part of that might be attributed to lending changes. The major bank lenders are affected nationally. They don't tighten credit in just certain regions. Their pain is shared everywhere when they no longer sell option ARM mortgages.
Now that Fannie and Freddie are bailing out of Alt-A mortgages, that affects everyone at the same time. There is no delay for that impact to hit the Seattle region.
At least everyone is on the same page here. That is we are no longer arguing "if", but rather, "how bad will it get".
This whole thing is a pendulum thing, but one thing that keeps niggling was what someone mentioned on minyanville: Pendulums don't stop at equilibrium.