Housing Market Is Safe as Houses, Say Papers

Today in two-newspaper town coincidences: real estate made the front page of both the Seattle Times and the P-I. "King County home sales edge up in June," says the Times, while the P-I makes a stronger claim for temperature-based sales, "Local housing market warming up with the weather."

Both are referencing an insignificant increase from last month--compared to a year ago, sales are still down almost 34% and listings are up about 42%. That has left King County with enough houses for sale to last the next six months, if things don't pick up or slow down from here. It's a state of equilibrium: sellers and buyers have about the same leverage and patience. But stasis doesn't move the fish wrap.

The Seattle Bubble blog applauds the sterling on-message PR work from reporters Aubrey Cohen and Elizabeth Rhodes:

This month’s theme is “let’s scare fence-sitters by telling them that rising interest rates will eliminate any savings from falling home prices.”

The rule of thumb is that .25% increase in the interest rate equates to a 2.5% discount in selling price. The reason this is a rule of thumb, of course, is because interest rates always affect selling prices, and vice versa. Much of the argument for there being a real-estate bubble rests squarely on the artificially low interest rates we enjoyed from 2002 through 2005 while selling the U.S. to foreign investors.

What is local news (i.e., interesting to us as Capitol Hill condo-browsers) is that ArtHaus boutique condominiums are having a grand opening this Saturday, July 12, from 2-6 p.m. It's a 1927 red brick building, at 735 Federal Avenue East, with nine units: studio, and one- and two-bedrooms. It sounds like the developers have really done some work with the renovation--there's a screening room with an arthouse/indie film collection--but you never know until you see it yourself. Which is where the grand opening comes in: besides movies and music, Crave is providing hors d'oeuvres and refreshments. If your house budget starts in the $200Ks, RSVP by midnight July 9.

Photo courtesy of Seattlest Flickr pooler iamdonte. Get in the damn pool already.