Seattle Sadhappy Talk
Lucky Seattle: “You were late to the party, you didn’t get as drunk and you’re less hung over.” That according to Portland economist Joe Cortright, as quoted in a recent PI piece with the headline “Area faces bleak real estate forecast.”
Even luckier still: according to both Smart Money and Forbes, Seattle is going to get over that hangover faster than any other city in the U.S.
And the word on the street was similar at the Urban Land Institute’s Fall meeting in Miami: Seattle and San Francisco are the two best real estate markets in the country, but even though they’re on top, on a scale of one to ten they still only rank about a six.
Meanwhile the mood is understandably righteous over at Seattle Bubble.
OK. Few haven’t noticed that “Seattle’s getting their butt kicked, too,” as Williams Marketing President Leslie Williams quipped. So now the question is: how low will it go? My, but isn’t it exhilarating, as you’re slipping over the edge of the precipice, to look down and wonder where the ground is?
My take is that Seattle still has some relatively strong fundamentals. But what the hell do I know? Like all of us, I’ve never been over a cliff quite like this one before. Oh, and did you hear that Citi is laying off 52,000 people? I’ve got one of their credit cards in my pocket. So it goes.