April 2010

Blackwater staff ‘violated weapons law’

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

Embattled security company faces new legal difficulties after its former president and four other former employees were charged with federal weapons charges
The embattled security company Blackwater, which became known as the privatised face of warfare in Iraq, faces new legal difficulties after its former president and four other former employees were charged with federal [...]

Take the Seattle Bubble Reader Census

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

I’ve designed a short 10-question survey for Seattle Bubble readers.

Answers are collected anonymously. I’m not asking for names, emails, or any other contact information (I don’t think I can even see the IP addresses of respondents), just a little bit of demographic information and your honest opinions.
I’d appreciate it if you would take five [...]

Seattle-Area Foreclosures Spike Sharply in March

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

Time for our detailed look at foreclosure activity for March in King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties. First up, the Notice of Trustee Sale summary:
March 2009 King: 1,347 NTS, up 23.7% YOY Snohomish: 472 NTS, up 25.5% YOY Pierce: 455 NTS, up 15.5% YOY

Here’s your interactive Tableau dashboard updated with the latest foreclosure data:
Foreclosure [...]

Puget Sound Counties Interactive March Update

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

Let’s take a look at March NWMLS statistics from around the sound. As usual, courtesy Tableau Software (available free to use online), the Around the Sound update is rocking sweet interactive data visualizations.
Feel free to download the old charts in Excel 2007 and Excel 2003 format. To get specific info about a certain [...]

25-Story Apartment Tower Built in 2001 Now a Teardown

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

The SunBreak broke an interesting story on Saturday afternoon: Belltown’s McGuire Apartments Killed by Flawed Construction
Photo by Flickr user Nick Denny
The McGuire apartment building, at 210 Wall Street in Belltown, opened its doors in 2001. Now, just nine years later, it’s closing them for good. Though the marketing copy, ironically, boasts “exceptional attention to detail [...]

Poll: Do most people you know believe that it is always a good time to buy a home no matter what?

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

Click “continue reading” below or use the sidebar to vote in this poll.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
This poll will be active and displayed on the sidebar through 04.17.2010.

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Weekly Twitter Digest (Link Roundup) for 2010-04-10

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

Eric Pryne has some more of the details on the fiasco of the Thorton Place condos at Northgate: http://is.gd/bdEpR #
RT @calculatedrisk: Percent Job Losses During Recessions, aligned at Bottom http://is.gd/beOWm #
via http://ritholtz.com/ – "I Saw the Crisis Coming. Why Didn’t the Fed? " http://is.gd/bf0oG #
This letter to the @SeattleTimes editor sounds like it was written [...]

Friday Flashback: “Home prices will not go any lower.”

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

Flashback to September 2006, when the 20-city Case-Shiller index was nearly 30% higher than its latest reading. The National Association of REALTORS® launched a “Public Awareness Campaign” titled It’s a Great Time to Buy or Sell a Home. The primary flier for this campaign is pictured at right.
Here are the highlights from the [...]

Interest Rates SKYROCKET! Everybody PANIC!

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

Yesterday the Seattle Times ran a syndicated Associated Press piece that came across to me as especially over-the-top: Homebuyers scramble as mortgage rates jump (emphasis added):

The era of record-low mortgage rates is over.
The average rate on a 30-year loan has jumped from about 5 percent to more than 5.3 percent in just the past week. [...]

More Wild Guesses from Forbes on the Housing Market

By SeattleMan on April 17, 2010

Over in the open thread, a reader dropped a link to an amusing article from Forbes: No Double-Dip For Housing
Although the end of the Fed’s purchases will certainly not help the housing market, we do not believe it will result in a “double-dip” for housing or the economy. Instead, we expect home building, home [...]

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