Waiting For Sellers To Become More Realistic
KXLY 4 reports from Washington. “Downtown Spokane showed off its increasing number of condominiums to the public on Saturday. Developers say they are still selling condos, just not as fast as before. Several major, high-end downtown housing projects are in the works. But soaring construction costs and high condo prices have stalled the market.”
“The number of condos in Spokane has grown considerably in the last two years, fueled by speculative buyers and developers. Real estate statistics show the pace of new units in 2006 above any period since 1979. But even as more projects get announced, it’s taking longer for the plans to be put to use. Developers don’t believe the bubble has burst, it’s just a little deflated.”
“‘In the earliest days, we were selling from plans before they were built. Now we’re having a bit of inventory. A lot of the announced projects that haven’t happened, I think are part of a fraction of the fact speculators are not driving the price like they were for a while when they were buying everything,’ says developer Ron Wells.”
The Bellingham Herald. “Whatcom County continues to climb on a national list of most overvalued home prices, but part of the reason is what’s happening across the country.”
“A housing valuation analysis…estimates this area was 47.1 percent above what housing prices should be in the first quarter of 2007. That continues to be the highest in Washington state.”
“Bellingham is no stranger to this study, having been ranked high on the list since 2005, when home prices began to appreciate significantly.”
“We’re having a softer landing than elsewhere,’ said said Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University. ‘I don’t want consumers to think their homes will continue to appreciate as we’ve seen in previous years. This is an indication that we are weathering the slowing real estate market better than other communities.’”
“Crellin speculated that the slight rise in home prices may be a result of the slow softening of the market.”
“‘Buyers are seeing some deals out there, but instead of taking the savings, people look at bigger homes,’ Crellin said. ‘So while the number of homes sold is down, the ones that are selling are being bought by people who are getting the maximum their budget allows.’”
The Beachcomber from Washington. “To those who care about affordable housing, the statistics are sobering. Consider that there are currently more houses on Vashon listed at more than $1 million (17) than those listed at less than $400,000 (15, one of which is a tiny cottage).”
“Or compare last year to this year: By this time last year, 19 homes for less than $400,000 had closed; so far this year, 11 have, according to statistics gathered by Emma Amiad, a buyer’s broker.”
“Even as home prices remain high, there are other signs that suggest the market on Vashon, like markets elsewhere, is softening. Houses, especially high-end ones, are sitting longer, said Dick Bianchi, owner of the Windermere office on Vashon.”
“And second-home sales, often a big part of the Vashon’s market, are not nearly as brisk, said Denise Katz, a Windermere agent.”
“As a result, there’s a larger inventory of houses on the market than agents have seen in a while, and the gap between pending sales and active listings is far greater than it was just six months ago, according to an analysis Bianchi recently made.”
“‘I would expect to see a slight turn to a buyers’ market with more moderate growth this year,’ he said.”
“Agents at other firms agreed that Vashon’s housing market is softer than it’s been in a while. Rising interest rates have meant fewer potential buyers; meanwhile, some sellers on Vashon, who have watched housing prices climb 15 to 20 percent year after year, are assuming that kind of escalation is continuing, and are thus asking too much money for their homes, agents said.”
“‘What I see, whether it’s because of agents or the expectations of sellers, is that people are listing their houses above market,’ said Ken Zaglin, co-owner of the John L. Scott franchise on Vashon. ‘I think a lot of the inventory we’re seeing is 10 to 15 percent above the market.’”
“The kind of phenomenon is not unusual in a market that has witnessed several years of rising prices, he added. ‘When you’re in a highly escalating market…no one wants to leave money on the table. But as the market begins to slow, which you see with higher interest rates, you can start to have a sense of invulnerability. When people price ahead of that curve, things languish. And we’re seeing a bit of that.’”
“‘If I were a buyer, I’d be waiting for sellers to become more realistic,’ he said.”
“Joan Newcomb finds Vashon’s current housing market troubling. ‘Manufactured homes are going for $300,000,’ she said. ‘It’s rather insane.’”
“‘It doesn’t feel like a buyers market yet,’ she said. ‘Things are just awfully pricey. They come onto the market just way too overpriced and then they sit for a long time.’”
The Register Guard from Oregon. “In Lane County, 193 condominium units changed hands last year, with a median price of $168,000, said Natalie Middleton of the Regional MLS in Portland.”
“Although real estate people say there is a brisk market for condos, requests for conversions of apartment units to condominiums have slowed considerably, said Linda Dawson, grants manager for the city of Eugene and tracker of conversion permits.”
“Dawson said she’s had only one request besides Westmoreland, and that for only five units, in the past several months. ‘A year ago, even six months ago, I was getting a lot more calls (about conversions),’ she said. ‘But it’s not an overwhelming number any more, it’s really fallen off.’”
“In Westmoreland Village, the four one-bedroom models, with about 500 square feet, will be offered at $94,900, and the remaining 82 units, which have two bedrooms, will start at $99,900, developer Mike O’Connell Sr. said.”
“Eventually, each duplex and fourplex building will be sold, ‘probably 90 percent to investors’ who will maintain them as rental units, he said. Prices have not been established for those buildings.”
The Idaho Stateman. “Steve Hosac is president of The Hosac Co., which is building the CitySide Lofts, a 77-condo project at the southeast corner of 13th and Myrtle streets.”
“What is the status of the CitySide Lofts? ‘We’re in the final stages of completion of Phase 1, which is 42 units. We’re in the neighborhood of just under 30 sales. We have eight or 10 units where people have already moved in.’”
“What’s the price range? ‘We start at about $220,000. I think our most expensive condos are in the low $400s.’”
“Is that what is considered affordable housing today? ‘There are as many definitions of affordable housing as there are people who have an opinion. But there is no doubt that, across the board, we are significantly lower than any other condo project planned or under construction.’”
“There are about 1,000 condos planned or under construction Downtown. Are we over-saturating the market?”
“‘If everything that is being planned were to go online all at once, it would be too much for the market to absorb. Everybody is saying ‘We want to get started, we want to get started.’ But the reality is that with financing and marketing, getting approvals and taking reservations, it’s unlikely that’s going to happen.’”
“‘If I were a buyer, I’d be waiting for sellers to become more realistic,”
…and waiting and waiting.. sick of waiting.
I was looking on Zip today and there was a house that has been on the market for over 250 days that was disounted only once. From 199,000 to 198,900. As Dr. Phil would say, “You gotta get real!”
They’ve probably gone thru 4 realtors already. No one has been able to sell it for them. Of course their price would have nothing to do with it. Meanwhile they’ve paid an extra $12,500 in interest, taxes and insurance. Yet they don’t want to go below that “big $100 reduction.
Haven’t you heard. In a buyers market the seller just has to “work harder” to sell their home.
“bond yields surge” 30 yr 5.23
WOW
imagine a real move up = carnage
any thoughts on the june 27 fed meeting. Interest rate will probably be unchanged or increased. the likelihood of decreasing rate is almost nonexistent. Decreasing rate would go against other major countries, who have been increasing their interest rate. any thoughts, anyone.
The Federal Reserve will change nothing. The ECB will raise rates and the 10 year T bond as a result will go to 5.75% - 6.00%.
“…Treasuries have been whipsawed, as traders speculated yesterday that corporations and other borrowers were unwinding interest rate hedges.
About $22.8 billion of U.S. corporate bonds have been sold this week, already more than this year’s weekly average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. About $11 billion of corporate bonds were sold yesterday, more than double the daily average, Bloomberg data show. ….The interest rate hedge is normally undone when the corporate bonds are sold, which can lift Treasury prices…..Options on fed fund futures show traders see a 45 percent chance the Federal Reserve will lift its target rate for overnight lending between banks a quarter percentage point to 5.5 percent in December, up from 3.2 percent odds a month ago. The odds of a rate cut are 31 percent, compared with 49 percent last month. Policy makers have kept the benchmark at 5.25 percent for almost a year.”
So instead of a lift in treasury prices, bonds sold off. Short term traders were expecting a little bounce and there wasn’t a bounce. Interest rate future/options went from a 3.2% chance of an increase to 45% chance of an increase. In the last 5 weeks the 10 year bond has dropped 5.5% in value losing another $406 today.
I think the FED will hold the line again. They are walking a razors edge now, if they did make a move I’d say up, but I just don’t see it for now. The RE crowd, (as we all know) is begging for a drop, they believe people would stampeed out and buy houses, ain’t gonna happen, far to many other factors involved.
and what do “they” believe these ephemeral buyers will use for loans?
I’d love to know.
“They” don’t worry about little things like that, not in their world. Because “there has never been a better time to buy a house” So sayeth the NAR.
Middle-class jobs are disappearing. The cost of surviving is skyrocketing. The housing industry is imploding. What could possibly save us from a recession at this point?
It’s hard for me to believe the Fed doesn’t see this coming. So my bet is that their next move will be down. But probably not until later in the year.
And then it will drop like a rock.
The next Fed move will be down. But it probably won’t be at the next meeting.
If they were to drop it like a rock (I don’t see that happening) hang on to your hats, because them you would see massive inflation.
I think the pressure is on BB to raise rates, in the face of most other nations doing so, except for Japan. If the BOJ keeps their rates artificially low, the carry trade will continue. But, if BB keeps our rates unchanged, the monetary unit of choice will soon by ANYTHING but the US $. But, we are already past the point of no return. BB is damned if he does, and damned if he does not, raise, or lower, or steady, rates. Expectations are being reflected in bond prices and rates. BB has said he is “comfortable” with 2% inflation, which he reports we are in, though we definitely are not. They may keep rates unchanged this meeting, but they will raise them very soon. There are so many reasons we are screwed, I don’t know where to begin.
In what areas do you see inflation rising when we’re mired in a deep recession? Other than gasoline, food, drugs, health care, college tuition, and taxes?
I sense your sarcasm.
BB has said he is “comfortable” with 2% inflation, which he reports we are in,
Totally hysterical.
This type of propoganda is nothing short of the best that Joseph Gobbels could ever offer.
If this burghers of this country had half a brain they’d deluge their Congressional reps to call this liar on his outrageous BS.
pssstttt….BTW, what’s Hilton wearing today?
Inflation has gone on unabated for decades(except for a brief period during the early 40’s). The FED says they are “happy” with 2% which that number is a crock, we do need food and energy. My guess is that we are running along closer to 7/8%. The FED is fine with inflation and it has brought the dollar down so low you can’t see under it, but deflation is what would make Ben Burnhackey soil his shorts, so he will keep the electronic press running full speed.
We may have to agree to disagree, but I distinctly heard Bernanke at his last round of Senate hearings emphasize that inflation is exceeding 2%, has been for some time, does not appear to be relenting, and he specifically stated that he was “uncomfortable” with this sustained level of inflation. I don’t have the time and energy to duke this out with you, but I would bet that the record agrees with me. Before the Senate and in recent speeches Bernanke has reported that inflation has been exceeding 2% and is “troubling”. I think you are allowing your agenda to color what you see black and white, which is a lot like how property pushers claim it always goes up.
?
I presume that was aimed at me? Anyway, I guess you’re right, and I don’t want to duke it out. . . but, his hawkish talking has led nowhere. He may SAY he finds over 2% “troubling”, but actions speak louder than words. If he really wanted to stem inflation (that is really closer to 10.7%, annualized), then he would raise rates through the roof. But he does not. Fin.
“I think you are allowing your agenda to color what you see black and white, which is a lot like how property pushers claim it always goes up.”
What’s my agenda, buddy? Don’t paint anyone you don’t know with a brush like that. Them’s fightin’ words.
The only way mobile homes are goin’ for $300k is that the people signing on the dotted line are functional illiterates with sufficient government entitlement checks to pay the note.
Testify, Brothah hd74man! Not to diss mobile homes, some of them are nice, but not that nice.
Big P~
No diss on mobiles. Hell, they were the stepping stone to a stick built for most young people back when you had to come up with 20% down.
I lived in a 10 x 50 for 5 years after college.
In fact, Stevie King was a MH dweller in a park on the other side of town.
Course things changed a bit after he wrote Carrie
Dissin’ on the 300 large, though (LMAO)
Can you imagine?
Yep, that’s what I’m dissin on, too, bro.
My in-laws have an old trailer that backs up to the railroad tracks in Port St. Lucie. The listed it at 100k. Of course it didn’t sell! It’s been over a year. They moved out of state — away from those horrible hurricanes and into tornado alley — and bought another house!
Up until recently, they thought we were as wrong about the real estate market as we were about Bush.
We say nut & honey and keep on renting.
The scary thing is, manufactured homes are selling for $300k in WA because of the land. In certain areas, acreage increased in price by 1000 percent. It’s scary. I called BS on prices more than 2 years ago and cannot believe how high they have risen since then. I talked to a realtor and mortgage broker and asked WTF, how are the mobiles appraising? They didn’t have an answer but were surprised as well that, oftentimes, manufactured’s were appraising nearly as high as stick built homes. It’s complete and total fraud. The Kool-Aid is from concentrate there. Insane times. WA state is going to tank, and I mean HARD.
’since 2005, when home prices began to appreciate significantly.’
Does someone from Bellingham know if this was the beginning of the run up?
I know people who moved there in 99 and were complaining back then that prices were up.
I applied for a two jobs at the university back in 2004 and 2005, and both years I noted that the prices were substantially (25-30%) cheaper than here in Ashland. I have not checked back recently, but I believe that the runup in Bellingham was a bit later. Also, I think Bellingham is a big target for the California equity locust, so it may still be holding up until that flow begins to drop.
Here in Ashland, the annual spring locust invasion has not come. I suspect it is the same in Bellingham. Seems like it might take two no show seasons for things to really drop.
I was up in Ashland this last weekend and forgot to swing by a real estate window to look at prices, since they brought such amusement the last time I visited (in 2005.)
I’d love to retire in Ashland. The reason it would have to be retirement is because I can’t imagine being employed there.
Ben. While 2005 may have had the greatest increases, it started a few years earlier. I am trying to find the old stats.
I moved here in ‘05 and the runup was *way* past “started”. He may be confusing the run-up in inventory with the run-up in prices.
A realtor here told me a few weeks back that there are 10 (yes, ten) times as many homes on the market now as there were in ‘05. Sounds high to me but that’s what he said: 2005 = 250 homes on market. 2007 = 2,500 homes on market. For all of Whatcom County.
A friend here bought in ‘01 and prices had already gone up substantially by then. When it started, I don’t know, but people tell me homes were “cheap” here in the mid/late 90’s.
I don’t consider the appreciation of the 90’s as bubbly. I know others do, but I suppose it is subjective. I think prices in the PNW really got away from fundamentals in 2003.
And it looks like all of the major stock indexes are going to close at least 1% down. So many tiny little sell offs… it seems like sooner or later the whole herd will spook at once.
Any news of a takover failure or bond rate rise will do that. Mooo.
“We’re having a softer landing than elsewhere,’ said said Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University. ‘I don’t want consumers to think their homes will continue to appreciate as we’ve seen in previous years. This is an indication that we are weathering the slowing real estate market better than other communities.’”
Doesn’t every area have a local ass hat like this saying basically the same thing?
Yep.
The antidote:
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” - von Mises.
Repeat until your sanity is restored.
Crellin is a nice guy and not stupid. But he is 100% funded by the RE industry. Don’t expect him to shout “fire” in this crowded theatre.
“Just a bit of smoke, no fire here folks. Enjoy the movie.”
“We’re having a softer landing than elsewhere,’
OK, I give up. Everwhere is different!
To be fair, the timing IS different. WA state RE shot up a year or two after the bubble was rolling in CA and it is coming down a year later. And the appreciation and overbuilding here hasn’t been quite as outrageous as, for example, Phoenix, Vegas, Inland Empire, etc… Prices need to drop about 20% for most of WA state vs. 40-50% in So. Cal.
Still a bubble and it will still deflate, but not every place will be hit as hard as the epicenters.
How do you decide how much of a correction in needed in one place versus another? Should I look at the runup of prices over five years, or local incomes compared to local median prices, or what? I live in Missoula, MT which is not usually on the charts, so I wonder what rule of thumb I should be using.
Thanks.
Missoula, along with Great Fall, and Billings are Metroplitan areas and are tracked by the U.S Census. There will be data about housing on their web site. Also at Missoula, the U of M has Bureau of Business and Economic Research. Their web site has all sorts of data on it. Your will find that Missoula is just like Bozeman prices are sky high, median income are about the same. The big differance is Missoula population growth has stalled. And house prices in Missoula are not rising anymore. That is from Pual Polzin who part of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, he is always quoted in any newpaper story about Montana’s economy. This means the adjustable rate mortgage time bomb is about to go off in Missoula. Also the the last housing bust (fall of 1979) started in Missoula and spread the rest of the state.
We start at about $220,000. I think our most expensive condos are in the low $400s.
This is in IDAHO? Who knew Idaho was such a popular place to live?
Get with the program - Idaho has everything you want that other states don’t have, everything you don’t want that other states have, and is perfect in every conceivable way. (Wait a minute, wasn’t that Montana?)
time to start a “downtown” condo string
lubbuck tx
asheville NC
madison , Wi
you forgot McAllen TX and Lake Texoma. I think I saw some on the drawing board in Marfa too.
Don’t forget Bozeman, MT and Pullman, WA. Downtown luxury condos for everyone!
The other day I road my bike though our “luxury downtown condos”, the Village. It’s on the east end of downtown Bozeman, built upon the site of a old railroad yard, next to a swamp, with a great view of I-90 and a hobo village next to MRL railroad’s tracks. Of the townhouses there, only one looked like someone was actualy living in it. I asked a bartender/realtor about it, he said he said he was one the sales team, and the condos had been selling fast last year but sales had slowed down quite a bit the last few months. Apperently a third of the condos in the two unfinished towers have been sold. I just wonder how many have been bought by sepculators?
Before leaving Bozeman around Xmas, I went jogging through the village several days in a row both early in the morning (~7am) and in the evening (after dark)–only a couple of lights in the entire complex. That place is a ghost town. Almost ALL of the units were bought by speculators.
That “luxury” complex was built in perhaps the worst location in town. Not only is it bordered by the interstate, swamp and the crummy part of downtown, but it is situated in a depression so there are virtually no views. I took a class on a field trip to that wetland just as they were starting the project and we all laughed at the notion of anyone wanting to build down there.
Plus the developer of “The Village” is well, the less said the better. Actualy I am suprised he hasn’t had a street named after him, like some other developers have done. If want see “The Village” with all the right camera angles, of course not showing the swamp, or all the old industral buildings, or the dilipadated grain elevator, or the “homeless” wandering back to their camp, or all the junk cars and scrap pile behind Randy Wild’s auto repair shop right on the hill right above “The
Village, or all of the northside shacks were a lot of Bozemans working class people live which is now “blight” according to some #@*##*!! developers, or a lot of other things. I am begining to wounder how many people have actually seen what they have bought. http://www.villagedowntown.com
And those are the cheapest in Boise.
HA! Anything on the water in CDA is more than a half mil. And there is A LOT of water frontage!
Everyone wants to live in Coeur d’Alene!
Everyone wants to live in Coeur d’Alene!
Well, not everyone. But this is a housing blog, isn’t it.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM.N: Quote, Profile , Research) has canceled its auction of assets from two troubled Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. (BSC.N: Quote, Profile , Research) hedge funds, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Bear Stearns is currently negotiating with JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. (MER.N: Quote, Profile , Research), Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile , Research) and other creditors in an attempt to restructure the hedge funds, which have suffered significant losses.
Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase and others had put some of the Bear Stearns assets up for sale, but JPMorgan Chase has canceled its auction and is negotiating instead, the source said.
Looks like the shell game goes on for now…
All depends on whether it is the NY Fed that called the meeting…if so it could be much worse.
Who knows? Maybe there will be a friendly Helicopter Rescue Squad buzzing into town for the poor drowning victims.
Gosh, those poor hedge fund managers, how do they afford to eat?!
Picture this more of a game of hot potato than any respectable business. Or musical chairs…or whatever…I respect welders and blacksmiths more than these spinning money moving craptacular investors.
The hedge funds are the perfect fall guy…
Nobody knows much about them, or the people involved~
Now let’s see if they quickly market an IPO how many idiots will flock to buy them out.If they are circling the wagons you can bet things are worse in the banking industry then you and I realize!
What is there to negotiate? Either you make money or lose money and have to sell your assets. The hedge fund is only salvageable when there is light at the end of the tunnel and if there is possibility for profit at the end of a definable period of time. The subprime mess is just getting worse.
Negotiate is a polite way of saying “no bids”
It’s usually a sign of trouble when a lender sells collateral from a hedge fund client. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was asked about the problems suffered by the Bear Stearns funds on Wednesday.
“I tried to make clear we will be dealing with the subprime issue for some time and that there will be losses along the way,” Paulson said, while stressing he was not commenting specifically about the Bear Stearns situation. “It is a natural outgrowth of what we’ve seen in the housing market and certain lending practices.”
“As mortgages continue to reset, this will take time to work its way through the system,” he explained. “But I continue to believe that this risk is largely contained. It doesn’t pose a significant risk to the economy overall.”
Well golly gee, LTCM didn’t pose a significant risk to the economy overall either (once we were through being strongarmed by the NY Fed). So Mr. Paulson is correct. “It is a natural outgrowth”
WTF does “significant risk” to the overall economy mean?
When you lend at 10-1 leverage and the ‘asset’ drops to less than 80 percent of the original purchase price before you margin call, your only available hedge is lube futures.
Developers don’t believe the bubble has burst, it’s just a little deflated.”
Are you talking about the housing bubble or the mortgage bubble? Either way you spin it there is a world of hurt waiting down the pipe line; due in Nov is the second property tax installment just in time for the holidays. Next month should show property tax delinquencies in the local newspaper.
Credit bubble?
This caught my eye:
“In Westmoreland Village, the four one-bedroom models, with about 500 square feet, will be offered at $94,900, and the remaining 82 units, which have two bedrooms, will start at $99,900, developer Mike O’Connell Sr. said.”
By my calculation, those 500 square foot units price out to $189 per square foot…that’s absurd for Eugene…I have my 2,400 square foot house on a quarter acre lot up for sale in Salt Lake City at $108 per square foot…
“‘Buyers are seeing some deals out there, but instead of taking the savings, people look at bigger homes,’ Crellin said. ‘So while the number of homes sold is down, the ones that are selling are being bought by people who are getting the maximum their budget allows.’”
This is a sad attempt at putting a positive spin on things. Translation:
Nobody is really buying houses, and those few who have taken out mortgages are barely keeping their heads above water.
Actually there is a bit of truth hidden behind the confusing language. Median price doesn’t tell us WHAT someone gets for that median price. I doubt very much that individuals are spending more than they otherwise would because the market is falling. But (1) bottom of the market falls out first, so median rises; and (2) you can probably buy a bigger/nicer house for the median today relative to a year ago.
The good news is that RE commentators almost universally acknowledge that the median doesn’t mean much anymore.
In Pullman, by the way, our median home price has been dropping for the past couple of quarters. Prices were actually going up through last quarter, but the high end of the market collapsed first so the median dropped. (Very hard to sell anything above $300k here, and even $250-$300k move very slowly.)
Finally! My high school town of Spokane has made the HBB at last. Too bad the people of Spokane are a little to simple to understand what a financial bubble is. A discussion with my incredibly ignorant relative in Spokane went like this:
Me: “So has Spokane felt the effects of the bursting housing bubble yet?”
Her: “Oh, we don’t have a bubble in Spokane. Prices just keep going up.”
Me: “What industry does Spokane have to support the higher prices?”
Her: “Our #1 industry is Californians moving here and spending their money.”
Me: “Wow, you are so lucky that Spokane is so Different from the rest of the country!”
THe sooner they stop building in Spokane, the sooner our construction costs here in Pullman start to fall. Everything is just rippling out from the epicenter in CA. Eventually everyone will be hit.
It’s a domino effect. Prices will just keep falling around the country.
“Condos in Spokane”
File that under “What’ll they think of next?” And if we are to take this guy who said speculators were buying up everything, what do you think that means for the Spokane market as opposed to other areas with “only” 30-40% speculation?
However, I do think “Condos in Spokane” would be a good band name.
“….everything” —-> “….everything literally”
Apparently you haven’t heard about the roaring nightlife in downtown Spokane. Everyone wants to live there.
I will say that I like “Luigi’s” downtown Great Italian place…..
Heh. Heh.
BWAHAHAHA!
I like Spokane, really I do. But “Everyone wants to live there” is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. It was driving *me* nuts for the year after college, and that’s when I realized that, much as I liked the place, there were things about it I just couldn’t stand.
(On the list of things I could stand, put “restaurant selection” and “waterfalls.” This was, unfortunately, overset by an Eeyore outlook on progress which drove me bonkers: “Our bond rating has collapsed. Oh well.” Well, FIX it already!)