Market News

The Washington State economy has added almost 370,000 jobs since the lowest point of the recession at the start of 2010. Additionally, total employment is 176,000 jobs higher than seen at the 2008 peak. With a vast majority of our metropolitan areas having fully recovered from the job losses seen during the recession, I expect to see somewhat more modest job growth in the coming year.

It appears that 2016 will be a year of few surprises as it pertains to the housing market. Because it’s an election year, we shouldn’t expect to see any significant governmental moves that would have a major impact on the U.S. economy or housing market. Read about this and more in Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner’s 2016 forecast.

Although the rate of growth has slowed somewhat, the Oregon economy continues to expand its job base. There was a decline in employment in September and the unemployment rate rose, but I do not see this as a trend so much as a temporary “blip”. I anticipate that, going forward, the State will continue to see growth at rates above the national average.

Earlier this week, Bill Russell, head of International Development for Chinese real estate website, Juwai, spoke to a large group of Windermere agents about how to connect to Chinese buyers. Since China is a country with very different marketing tactics and a culture drastically different than our own, we were able to learn a great deal.