The Puget Sound Indexer was active from April 2020 to April 2021. Although it is not being updated regularly, there is still quite a bit of good content about the Puget Sound region that you may find useful. The editor may emerge from his other activities to pick up where he left off.
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Housing: It’s More Than Apartments!
Most Americans don’t live in multi-family housing and the supply of single family houses is not keeping up with demand. Yet housing policy solutions always seem to steer back to multi-family.
You Bought a Car. Who Gets The Sales Tax?
Dealers in Fife recorded over a half a billion dollars in vehicle sales in 2019, and the city collected over $1,000 per household in taxes on those sales. In contrast, the adjacent city of Edgewood collected just $11 per household in car sales taxes.
The High Price of Low Rent
We are starting to see an equalization of rents across the region, with rents falling in expensive areas and rising in less expensive areas. This equalization will be brutal for the lowest income renters.
Housing Booming All Over—But Not In Washington
All of the subregions of the country, including the slow-growing Northeast, saw an increase in single family permits in 2020 over 2019. But, somehow Washington State missed the memo.