Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Seattle Real Estate Ranked #1 Investment

The Seattle Post Intelligencer today published an article: Seattle Real Estate Rated No 1. According to the 30th annual study of emerging trends in real estate from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute, Seattle ranked as the #1 city to invest among the nation's top ten metropolitan areas. San Francisco ranked 2nd, followed by Washington DC, and New York City. Chicago was ranked last among the top ten markets.

The study suggests that money invested in real estate in Seattle will likely be worth more than money invested in other regions, however it doesn't elaborate on how much the yield would be or over what time period.

Hmm...I'm not sure if this really provides anything for the average homeowner or potential buyer/seller in the Seattle real estate market. It could be predicting that Seattle will be the best of the worst and will see less depreciation overall than other cities, or it could be predicting that we will see the better appreciation over the next few years than other cities. It really depends on how you *want* to interpret it and what you believe is happening with the economy and local and national real estate markets.

I know I've got my own opinions on the future outlook for the Seattle market, but I'm curious what others think. Anyone want to share?

Thursday, October 16, 2008

I Guess That's One Way to do it!


Just read this the other day on Yahoo News - A Cambodian couple decided to saw their wooden house in half as part of their divorce! The husband carried all of the bits and pieces away to his parents' house nearby while the wife got to keep the half that is still standing! Wow, that's one way to do it I guess! Divorce is definitely an ugly situation, but this one is just plain bizarre!