SeattleIAM: UW Huskies Still Without Defensive Coordinator, Are Seattle’s Rents on the Rise?

This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from SeattleIAM where you will find the best blogs from Seattle, Washington as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring

Walker Says No to UW Coaching Position

According to Bob Condotta over at Husky Football Blog, there has been official word from UCLA that defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker is staying there. This is a big hit for UW “as the Huskies made a very serious effort to get Walker to replace Kent Baer.” In addition, a second candidate for UW, Ron English, was hired by Louisville. “It's uncertain where the Huskies go now.” Condotta writes that “one option is promoting LB coach Chris Tormey, who was UW's defensive coordinator in 1994.”

The post states that the “turning point” for Walker came when Neuheisel “agreed to allow Walker to keep his current defensive staff at UCLA intact.” The two defensive assistants who came to UCLA with Walker, defensive line coach Todd Howard and linebackers coach Chuck Bullough, are staying at UCLA. “They were rumored to be coming to UW if Walker had moved north.”

City of Seattle Goes Red Light Camera Happy

In a recent post on The Daily Weekly, Aimee Curl reports that the city is expanding its “army of red light cameras.” Last year, the city installed six red light cameras “as part of a pilot program— and plans to install an additional 24 in 2008.” The penalty for running a red light is $101 and the penalties incurred resulted in $1.1 million in revenues for the city. The fees will increase to $128 this year.

The police issued 16,539 citations in 2007, although “the city reports that the frequency of red light running generally dropped by 50 percent at the intersections where cameras have been installed.” In addition, states Curl in her post, “the number of injury accidents and the number of people injured also declined.” Red light cameras will be installed in North, Central, and South Seattle. Curl posts a list of each of the intersections where the new cameras will be installed.

Speaking of Red Light Fines… Tim Eyman Knows What to do With the Money!

A recent post from West Sound Politics notes that the infamous Tim Eyman has proposed a new initiative, but this one may “actually be a common sense idea for taking money being collected from certain traffic fines and using it to help alleviate traffic congestion.”

Eyeman’s initiative would require that local governments spend the money collected “from red-light violation cameras on local projects specifically aimed at eliminating traffic congestion.”

 

According to the post, Bremerton has approved “installation of red-light cameras and is in the process of selecting the intersections where they'll be installed.” The money generated from the cameras is “supposed to pay for hiring new police officers.” Our blogger points out that “while Eyman's proposed new initiative does have some merit… I'm not too sure I'm comfortable with the idea of the state dictating how local government will spend its money.”

Predictions: Rent Up, Housing Prices Down

Seattle Bubble’s most recent post reveals that due to the rapid rise in the rent to home price ratio, something has to give. It will either mean rising rents or falling home prices in King County. “The ratio of prices to rents has been fairly consistent on a historical basis” but it’s been “blown out” in the last few years by increasing home prices. “Home prices have typically hovered in the range of 20 to 25 times rent. But since 2001 this ratio has steadily climbed to the point where it stood at 38 times rent at the end of 2006.” This “strong historic relationship between rents and home prices” shows the same trend on a national basis over the past 45 years.

Our blogger also reports in the post that “Seattle rents have risen 8.6% in the past year – versus only 2.8% in total for the first six years of the century.” Many people see this as a sign that the rents will continue to rise, to bring back the historical balance, and that a decrease in home values is not likely. “The argument is basically that rents have fallen behind incomes since 2001.” Given the rent increases in the past year, our blogger states that we are “back in line” with income levels. Since we historically don’t see rent prices vastly exceeding income growth, our blogger predicts rent increases of ~5% per year and that “we meet in the middle and are back in synch by 2011-12 – which would imply a 12-16% decrease in nominal home prices over the next three or four years.”

About SeattleIAM



SeattleIAM is part of a groundbreaking network of city-focused blog aggregation, user generated media and social networking websites currently rolling out across North America. Each IAM website filters and organizes blog content as well as offering video upload capabilities, social networking, blog authoring, favourites lists and rumours. The IAM Network is a division of SoMedia Networks Inc which also operates Inveslogic.com, Greenedia.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com. For more information or to register an account, visit SeattleIAM.com.