Another “report” has emerged about housing in Seattle and the Seattle Times has a story about its claims that somehow less than two thousand pricey units are somehow destroying the whole housing economy in the city and making life hard for poor people. It’s nonsense. I caught wind of the 51 page analysis of just 8 buildings with expensive units and send the following response to reporters I thought might write about it. Fortunately, the Times wrote a pretty balanced story.

The Perils of Bad Data and Bad Narratives in the Seattle Housing Story

A forthcoming report claims, based on looking at 8 multifamily buildings, that the selling price and ownership patterns in those buildings in Seattle will “worsen economic inequality.”

This is false.

What worsens economic inequality in Seattle is inflation caused by lack of housing supply.Housing is hard to build in Seattle. Most builders say it takes as long as five years to complete a project (and the City admits it can take 3 years). When housing is scarce prices go up and higher prices consume a greater share of the earnings of people with less money.

Using a sample of 8 buildings doesn’t tell us very much about the whole housing economy in Seattle. There are plenty of sources, including the US Census, that look at what’s happening with housing, and the Seattle Times and other outlets report on that data frequently. There is no way to generalize about the housing economy, especially from 8 buildings selected because of high priced units.

The 1,600 units are less than 1 percent of the more than 168,000 (US Census) multifamily units in the city, and less than half of 1 percent of the total units of housing in the city (334,000).Our previous look at charges that housing was being purchased and taken off the market would require more than 1,400 units to be purchased and vacatedto have an impact of a 1 percent increase in housing prices. Since then there is a lot more housing. These units have very little impact on housing prices, no matter who owns them.

The report cites “global hidden wealth” as the source of the money for this housing and this implication is conspiratorial, unsubstantiated, and xenophobic. Along with being racist, this is what the King County Assessor said about trying to regulate ownership:

Lastly, I don’t believe this proposal addresses the problem we are collectively seeking to fix: affordable housing. The luxury home market is not driving our affordability crisis. It is simple supply and demand of housing priced for working people and seniors that is driving skyrocketing prices.

Featured image is from local retailer of fun novelty items, Archie McPhee. They sell this tin foil hat and say this about it: “Works against aliens, government plots, men in black, giant ape cultists, the electric company, the circus clown collective, cyber-narcissists, grumpy psychics and nosy neighbors.” I wonder if it works against shadowy foreign buyers of real estate?