Get Real Tacoma

Here’s one way to increase the pool of home buyers: Allow more skilled immigrants to enter the United States legally.  Erik Emery wrote a post on a Thomas Friedman article in the New York Times that says we should do exactly that.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

So… people come here to start companies that employ people and buy houses.  Sounds good to me. Click here to read the full article.

According to The News Tribune Blog (reporting on Northwest Multiple Listing Service Data) The median home price in Pierce County is now $230,000, down 13% since last year.  They are promising more pricing and analysis in tomorrow’s paper.

The number of houses on the market are dropping, but the number of closed sales are down even more- which means housing inventory is still too high.  With all of the changes and new restrictions on financing I doubt that this comes as much of a surprise to anyone.

In September of 2004, The News Tribune reported that the median home price in Pierce County had topped $200,000.  That was a big deal at the time.  That was also the year I bought my first house and started investing in my 401k. According to my 401k statements, my stocks dropped about 40% this year- so for today I’m feeling a little bit better about my house…