Housing Market Cooling
14th December 2018
The Antiplanner is on the case.
Early signs indicate at least some housing markets are cooling off. Homes for sale in Seattle aren’t seeing as much intense bidding as a few months ago. Bidding wars are also becoming rare in Portland. The Case-Shiller index says that markets are weakening in other regions as well.
The problem with the housing market is that housing costs are too high in many markets for non-rich people to find accommodation, and yet housing prices can’t come down without a lot of economic Bad Stuff happening. It’s like inflation: Inflation is a bad thing but once it happens you’re kinda stuck with it because reversing it, deflation, is even worse.