JayB

I shamelessly despoiled the philosophical and cultural environment on Phinney from 02-04, and nearby Ballard in 97/98, so the damage is already done. If you look closely, you'll see subtle signs of contagion everywhere. Escape to West Seattle while you still can.

As long as someone more clever than myself has done the shoe-horning for me and puts their investment on the rental market I'll be happy. Mmmm. Wingdome.

Seattle will probably always be expensive, especially the nicer neighborhoods that enable one to avoid commuter-hell, but conditions in the credit and loan underwriting markets are changing rather dramatically as we speak. This has been front page stuff in the financial press for months. Real estate may be local, but credit markets are global. FIFA is about to become a mortgage lending acronym that is as ubiqitous and important as FICO. Right now the chasm between the cost of renting and owning is magical enough for me, though.

I've heard the same thing elsewhere about boom-time construction when labor and materials are tight in general, and publicly traded home-builders in particular. Ditto for a significant number of "flips." Who cares about the condition of the foundation, the plumbing, or the wiring if you've got stainless/granite in the kitchen?

If we actually end up in Seattle proper I'd probably look to live in the Phinney/Greenlake area since that's where our friends are, and then rent until the conditions in the mortgage/credit market are done working their magic. Gordita's has to be at least as good as anything in White Center, especially when you take pric-per-unit-volume into account.

But all those crazy stupid loan schemes are a significant contributing factor to those shockingly high house prices. Don't worry, though, all those stupid crazy loan schemes are also a significant contributing factor in the impending shocking reduction in house prices. If I was you, I'd wait before buying anything. Check the threads at the Mortgage Broker's answer to cc.com: http://forum.brokeroutpost.com/loans/forum/2/143984.htm

350 days or thereabouts. Amazing how nice 100 degrees in Portland felt last week in comparison to 80 degrees with jungle-humidity in Boston. Wife wants to work in New Zealand for a spell after residency, so if that works out it might be into '09 before I'm blighting the PNW with my presence on a permanent basis.

At least the name indicates a certain level of intellectual honesty on the developer's part. Even "Polygon Homes" would imply a bit less uniformity and regularity. It'd be interesting to see if the transitive property applies to the floorplans. I can't believe that you passed on West Seattle, though. Some folks here may take that personally.

So bolting is the main problem that land managers are concerned about at the sport-mecca that is JT, and this has lead to access restrictions? Bolting is the main problem at Bishop as well I presume, and the rampant bolting in Boston Basin is no doubt behind the land management regs in force there as well. Thanks for clearing that up.

I think it's amusing that neither of you are capable of detecting sarcasm. I am - in all seriousness - disappointed that the two of you won't be amusing me with a real-time chronicle of your efforts, though.

I'm sure that once you and Pope implement whatever cunning, stealthy methodology you are presently devising to advance your agenda, and the the various environmental groups and regulatory agencies are awakened to the fact that people are drilling 3/8" x 2" holes in rock surfaces that constitute less than a 1x10^18th of the total exposed rock surface in the US for recreational purposes the outcry will make the collective response to "Silent Spring" look like a collective yawn by comparison.

Who said outlaw sport-climbing? I'd just like to see it banned from PUBLIC land. Those who insist on practicing that form of "climbing" should perhaps find some private land that they can choose to damage. Go buy some rocks. How 'bout the "Washington Climbers Coalition" and the "Access Fund" raise some money and buy Frenchman's Coulee....it's already been wrecked and they could put a fence around it, charge admission and even keep out trad climbers if they want, and then wreck it some more. Didn't they buy a couple of rocks in Icicle Canyon? As public land, though, I'd rather see places like Vantage shut down to ALL climbing until the place is restored, rather than allow more bolt trails. What? Not enough natural lines in Vantage to keep climbers happy? The face routes are too long to top-rope or belay from the top? Not enough to satisfy the uncontrollable urge to drill??? In the time that you took to write this post, you could have dashed off an e-mail to at least one major environmental group alerting them to the nature and scope of this problem. Seriously. Please start your campaign immediately, and keep us appraised of your efforts by posting all of your correspondence and any replies that you get in return.

Such companies pay dearly for misguided risk by tanking spectacularly and dying in a poof of shredded documents. The fittest investors jump ship and elude bankruptcy at the expense of the rest. Something like that... http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/markettrends/20070719-carrns.html

What happens to companies that borrow money to produce something that consumers stop buying, or more likely, don't buy enough of at a price that's sufficient to pay off the loan and other expenses associated with producing/selling whatever they're in the business of producing/selling?

Good luck with that. Do us all a favor and create a thread where you post your correspondence with various environmental groups and their responses to you, as well as all of the legislative and administrative victories that you amass in your crusade to get sport climbing outlawed.

Is Quadrant selling a limited edition Bear Stearns model in the semi-custom portfolio?

Sounds like someone needs an urban loft with polished concrete floors, exposed steel beams, and lots of glass to glower and angst about the aesthetic predilections of the middle class in. [Yelling through clenched teeth, pacing back and forth before expansive view of the Seattle Nightscape out the oversized windows, gesturing dramatically with half-full wine-glass after throwing the unsolicited catalog full of semi-custom floor plans with one, two, or....three car garage options into the brushed-matte stainless steel recycling bin in disgust] "HAVE THESE PEOPLE NEVER HEARD OF LE-MOTHERFUCKING-CORBUSIER?"

If it's a one-off edit that you're looking for you're probably better off just handing it over to someone with editing software installed on their PC and asking them to do it for you, borrowing their machine for a bit and doing the editing, etc.

Stay far, far away from Lakewood, Tillicum, Parkland, and Ponders Corner...and Hilltop.

This is, without a doubt, the funniest thing you have ever posted. You should get the retard award for this one. Okay. As one who is unclear on precisely how it is that men are both in control of and responsible for how women feel about their bodies/appearance, I'd be interested in having you explain how this particular example of cause and effect works.

Might come in handy during the bike commute from West Seattle to Seattle proper and/or Redmond. You have heard of the wonders that await all who reside in West Seattle, no?

http://www.smf.org/

Where does it say anything about the kind of helmet he was wearing?

Cool. I had my eye on that one but never managed to squeeze it in. I miss the Cascades. T - 363 days.....

dude get off yer fuckin high horse. man you guys get yer panties in a bunch when someone challenges your intellectual and moral superiority. ya know what, i think you're no better and no worse than anyone else. tough pill to swallow isn't it sparky? but it goes down good with all FW's jiz you guzzle. This funniest thing about this post is that it's both morally and intellectually superior to any of the contributions that you made to this thread when you were actually attempting to put forward a serious argument.