"Pending sales of single family homes in King County surged in April," reports the Seattle Times. "Pending sales...were up 25 percent from March." But what's this in the bottom half of the story: "But the number of closed single-family home sales in King County in April--1,004--represented just 60 percent of the pending sales reported in March, an unusually low share." Seattle Bubble breaks it down for you (with charts): "[P]ending sales are rapidly becoming a totally useless measure of actual market activity." Meanwhile, Aubrey Cohen notes that about 21 percent of Seattle homeowners are underwater. more ›

The seattlepi's real estate reporter, Aubrey Cohen, just spotted a bridge floating across Elliott Bay. Turns out it's pieces of the new Hood Canal Bridge (to be finished in 2010), "pontoons U, V, W and X," according to WSDOT. (We're kidding about Aubrey wanting to sell it. That's a little real estate humor, vital in these dark times.) WSDOT has been photographing the Hood Canal bridge project for Flickr, if you want to see more. more ›

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." more ›

The mass insanity of the housing bubble over the last few years has pretty fully revealed itself by now. One need only visit our good friends over at Seattle Bubble to read about the increasing devastation. On Jan. 15, Tim posted the big news: according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS), King Co. finally posted year-over-year median closing prices on housing. According to the same report, active listings are up in the YOY comparison (51%) and pending sales are down (by 33% YOY), both records. In other words, the market is flooded, demand is down, and housing prices are falling. more ›

's lead real estate reporter--writes an article about the state of the national housing market once a month when the industry standard Case-Shiller numbers are released. The Case-Shiller index (from S&P) tracks the changes in home prices for 20 US metropolitan areas each month as compared to a year prior and is the benchmark index for real estate performance. more ›

Did you know that there's only one credible real-estate industry voice in Seattle? It's a marketing firm in town that works with real estate developers. We've learned this from reading Aubrey Cohen's real estate reporting in the Seattle P-I. Here's a search on articles containing the exact phrase "Williams Marketing" -- they're quoted in at least one article per month since last November. (Who are the schmoes paying the P-I for ads when there's so much free ink available?) more ›

If you're in the mood for some wide-eyed, Kool-Aid stained boosterism, look no further than this article in today's P-I. It's in response to the New York Times piece announcing a condo-sales slump. The tone is strictly "move along, nothing to see here." more ›