Yes, home prices in Seattle are expensive, but it's a little silly to compare today's housing prices to those of five years ago (which was pretty much the depth of the housing market) and say, "Oh my god, prices have doubled!"

My house has gained about 45% in value in the 11 years since I bought it, which when compounding interest is really only 3.5% a year.

Does that mean we get to keep all the taxes in Seattle? Thought not...

What are the likeliest conditions that would deflate our housing bubble?

Someone should educate Phil sbout which direction the flow of money goes between the city of Seattle and the rest of King County.

@3 this is not a housing bubble. it is supply and demand. basic economics. and unfortunately, international billionaires needing a safe, relatively temperate marketplace to park their financial gains(these are a percentage of the people paying well over asking price in cash). There is a shortage of properties on the market + influx in population(tech jobs). so when the population gains slow, decreasing demands, then you might see seattle knocked of the number 1 spot, but i don't think you'll see seattle fall from the top ten anytime in the foreseeable future. banks aren't allowed to sell bad loans to bad borrowers anymore, so a market crash like 2008 i think is pretty unlikely.

Let's disallow any new state highway building that does not reduce traffic congestion in Seattle.

You're breaking my heart, Marshawn.

You're the worst person in the world, President Fuckface.

Boo fucking hoo, Phil Fortunato.

@6
Yup, the houses in my Columbia City 'hood are being bought by Russian oligarchs.
Yeah

@3,4,6 - I would think adopting a policy like Vancouver BC's (15% tax on foreign housing buyers) would have a deflationary effect here, as it did there. Perhaps we could also do something like requiring rent increases to stick to the rate of inflation only, or be authorized by a Rent Board.

Remember, the "free market"'s only interest is profit, not solving society's problems.

As to "it is supply and demand. basic economics."... well if rich people are parking money in empty condos and not living there, then ... isn't that a market distortion? That's not pure "supply & demand", because the housing is being used not as housing, but as an uninhabited investment/ safe haven. And a "distortion" that artificially inflates prices sure looks like a kind of bubble. Take hot money out of the equation and see what true supply and demand looks like.

Try the Vancouver 15% tax thing and see what happens.
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I really love this conservative perspective of "can't do it with my money."
Sorry, if it is taxes, then technically it's Caesar's money--er--State money and it gets applied wherever the State finds it to be most effective in addressing common needs, ideally based on the principle of "the most good", and with evidence-based policy.

We're all in this together. Either pull up your pants and pitch in, or move.

If these conservo-libertarian types want to have a checkbox tax system where each taxpayer gets to allocate "their" money to specific State programs... then I dare them to do it.
I suspect that the defense budget would drop considerably.
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As to Seattle being it's own county: 1) I misread it as "country", and thought Sounds great! 2) Maybe our own county would be a good thing, I don't know.

I don't understand why Seattle doesn't review rental & housing price stabilization techniques used in different cities around the world, and then selects and/or modifies the best one(s). Surely this is what the internet and "globalization" is for. And surely different things are being tried by different locales.

My visceral, spleen-venting reaction is to say fuck 'em — let them do less without our tax dollars (as @5 mentions, idiots like Fortunato either fail to comprehend or pretend not to understand how the money actually flows). But my bleeding heart points out that innocent people in the rest of the county would likely be harmed by such a separation. Seattle is the successful, stable older sibling with the decent job who lives in a nice neighborhood with a good spouse and gets along with Mom and Dad; the 'burbs are the resentful younger brother, obsessed about measuring success, paranoid about being overshadowed, flirting with libertarianism like so many Ayn Rand-reading college boys. You gotta love him because family is family, but there's no reason not to tell him from time to time when he's being a little shit.

@3, snipers and Sam Brownback.

This is a system and a process that has played itself out many times all over the country. Desirable places to live go up in value, less desirable places go down. Young people find something they can afford, or they sacrifice to be somewhere cool. The cheaper places attract the new cool kids, and those become the hot new places. When you price a generation out of the housing market, the cost is that generation leaves and makes its economic contribution elsewhere.

There are thousands of towns across the US that cost almost nothing. There is nothing requiring anyone to stay in Seattle. Honestly- for a year's rent here you can buy a very nice home in a nice, safe, even prosperous town. You won't find the same kinds of jobs, but you won't need to.

We're including emojis into the morning news roundups now, I see. What a wonderful new milestone to have passed. The Stranger is looking more like Buzzfeed every day.

@14: That sounds good, but the prospect of moving to a podunk village in which I might actually be able to afford a home requires a) that I can save enough money to purchase a home there to start, with my "higher" wages that I'm making in the city (what little doesn't go to rent, of course), and b) that I have a job when I get there, that pays enough that I can afford the mortgage and other living expenses. For those of us that have become specialized in a field that only exists within a city, that's an inherent impossibility. So there's really no easy answer here.

Auburn would literally not exist without Seattle, and if were a part of a county without Seattle's wealth, it's many, many social problems would be much worse.

Republicans are dumb.

@17 - They just keep getting dumber too. Matches their constituency (as the various rightwing trolls here consistently show us).

@15 - Just like market forces have corrected the income inequality imbalance in this country that has been growing for the past 30+ years.