Housing Market Slows Down States Income
Washington State will experience a cut of about $132 million from the states expected income due to the housing market slow down over the last two years. The State of Washington actually had a surplus of $1.4 billion, so this actually just reduced the surplus instead of the state being short any funds. Lawmakers in Olympia are currently preparing to update the state’s budget for the next fiscal year.
Washington States chief economist, ChangMook Sohn, said the drop in income was the first time in about five years that the state saw any setbacks in quarterly revenue projections. Still, Sohn called the lower income numbers “clearly a very minor fine-tuning, rather than a major change.”
Strong real estate and construction markets have pushed the state’s economic fortunes in recent years, and the state has been relatively insulated from national housing-market weaknesses that have stung mortgage lenders.
Most of the weakness in income numbers was due to the fact that we had less sales of homes in the state over the last two years. When ever a home sells in the State of Washington, property owners have to pay the state an excise tax on the sale ranging from 1.25 to 1.80% of the property sale. In Whatcom County the rate is 1.78% excise tax on the sale. Here’s a link to find the Washington State real estate excise tax rates for each county in the state.
Jerry Campbell - Muljat Group - Bellingham, WA 98225 - Bellingham WA Real Estate