Home Buyers Gain Bargaining Power

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Seattle begins thinking about new jail

Even in popular urban areas where the market is still strong, it’s gotten easier to find a house

HOT lanes ready to roll

Home buyers gain bargaining power

More than 9,600 drivers have set up accounts for the new “highoccupancy toll” lanes on the Valley Freeway. The state’s first experiment in tolling car pool lanes begins Saturday. B1

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Alternative to county lockup needed by 2012 BY HECTOR CASTRO P-I reporter

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“I haven’t driven since 1990. I pretty much bus it and walk it everywhere. There had to be a bus line nearby. There had to be amenities nearby.”

Seattle city leaders have been quietly developing a list of potential sites for a new jail as they struggle to decide where to house misdemeanor offenders once they are no longer welcome at the King County Jail. “We’re just kind of at the beginning stages, looking at all parts of the city. It doesn’t necessarily mean we would build in Seattle,” said Catherine Cornwall, a senior policy adviser to the city and lead analyst on the city’s jail project. Historically, Seattle and most other cities in King County housed misdemeanor offenders and suspects at the county correction centers. But by the end of 2012, the county will no longer accept misdemeanor offenders and suspects, focusing instead on housing felons. Cities have responded in a variety of ways – through adopting alternatives to incarceration, including home monitoring, and housing some inmates in jails in Yakima and other areas. But most city leaders agree that eventually new jails will be needed and that they should be spread around a south and north collection of cities. A South King County group of cities decided about a year ago that it needs a jail and is beginning the work of finding a site. “They have one option they’re looking at, and that’s a combined facility in the south region,” Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said. But in the northern region and on the Eastside, one complicating factor has been Seattle and whether city leaders decide to build their own jail or join the other cities in building and operating a regional lockup. Seattle has hired a consultant to weigh the two options. “Whatever we do, it’s going to be expensive,” City Councilman Nick Licata said. A 2006 study by New Yorkbased Ricci Greene Associates projected out 20 years and found that Seattle is likely to need about 440 jail beds. The remaining cities in the northern and eastern parts of the county would need just under 200 beds. The consultants estimated that building a jail to house Seattle’s 440 beds would cost about $110 million. Running it would likely cost $18.4 million a year. But whether the city builds its own jail or helps build and run

– Rick Ybarra, who just closed on a Wallingford condo

SEE JAIL, A10

Big decisions on Arena deal With six weeks until the scheduled start of its trial in federal court, the city of Seattle must decide whether it’s best to fight the Sonics owners in court or to seek some sort of buyout agreement over the KeyArena lease. C1

ALSO IN THE NEWS WORLD/NATION Warm reception: The Olympic torch began its relay through Hong Kong before a crowd that heckled a pro-Tibetan protester. A3 Delegate defects: A longtime superdelegate backer of Hillary Clinton threw his support behind Barack Obama, saying the turbulent race is bad for the Democratic Party. A4

SEATTLE Cold case: Detectives hope a new composite sketch will help them finally identify a young woman killed more than 30 years ago south of Everett. B1 Murder trial: In the Jewish Federation shooting trial, Naveed Haq’s brother testified that Haq was unhappy with his religion, ethnicity – even his name. B1

BUSINESS A dime for your thoughts: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says he knows “exactly” what Yahoo is worth to him, but did not say how much that is, or when Microsoft would announce its next move. E1 Earnings: Jones Soda, which lost $3.85 million in its first quarter, says a multiyear transition period would lead to more losses. E2

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SCOTT EKLUND / AP

Amy Lodwig, left, with 6-month-old daughter Anya, and Alexa Martin, with 7-month-old son Noah, follow Martin’s daughter, Nicole Greenwood, walking Laika and Jada in Ravenna on Thursday. Both mothers praise the neighborhood for its location and walkability. BY AUBREY COHEN P-I reporter

Erin and Andy Mathias started looking for a new house around the start of the year on the north side of Seattle because it was convenient to work, shopping, parks and other amenities. They found a good selection, but at least as much competition for anything decent in their price range, up to $350,000. “We would see a listing the day it came out, try and see the house either that day or the following day, have our Realtor check into it and there were already multiple offers on the table,” Erin Mathias said. “It became a little frustrating after a while.” Although the Seattle-area real estate market has slowed, buyers still don’t have the advantage over sellers in such areas as North Seattle, West Seattle, Capitol Hill, Lake Forest Park and East Bellevue. Market observers attribute the resilience of these markets to less speculative building during the boom from 2004 into 2007, and buyers’ increasing desire to live closer to work and commercial centers. But even in stronger areas, buyers have more choices and bargaining power than they did a year ago. The Mathiases wanted to live near Woodland Park Zoo, where they had rented for about three years. Rick Ybarra, who just closed on a condominium in Wallingford after years of renting in Seattle, focused his search from Capitol Hill north to 85th Street. In fact, since the start of September, the area from the Ship Canal to the city limits was a definite seller’s market, averaging 4.3 months of housing inventory – meaning it would take that long to sell all the homes in that market at its current sales pace. Inventory averaged 5.3 months in Seattle as a whole and SEE BUYERS, A10

TODAY’S WEATHER Mostly cloudy; showers likely. High 59. Low 45. B6 Comics Crosswords Editorial Horoscope Lottery Obituaries Television

D4,5 D4,5 B4,5 D2 B2 B3 D3

4 to 6 months 6 to 8 months 8 months or more

Seattle

Bellevue

Issaquah

5

90

Renton

Source: Northwest Multiple Listings Service

SUV and pickup sales suffer – as do big Detroit automakers INSIDE

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WHO KNEW? Some gas stations are encountering an unexpected challenge as prices rise: Some older pumps can’t be set to charge more than $3.999⁄10 per gallon. E1

© 2008 SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

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average listings and sales for the seven months ending March 2008

SEATTLE P-I

As gas costs soar, U.S. rushes to smaller cars

★★★

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BUYER’S OR SELLER’S MARKET? Most areas of King County have turned from seller’s to buyer’s markets in recent months. A buyer’s market is one where it would take at least Housing inventory six months to sell all the homes Months it would take to sell all homes listed in each area based on listed at the current sales pace.

BY BILL VLASIC The New York Times

DETROIT – Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede. In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car. The switch to smaller, more fuel-ef-

ficient vehicles has been building in recent years, but has accelerated recently with the advent of $3.50-a-gallon gas. At the same time, sales of pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles have dropped sharply. In another first, fuel-sipping fourcylinder engines surpassed six-cylinder models in popularity in April. “It’s easily the most dramatic segment shift I have witnessed in the market in my 31 years here,” said George Pipas, chief sales analyst for Ford Motor Co. SEE AUTOS, A9

CONSUMERS SHIFT TO ECONOMY CARS As sales for the leading pickup truck and large SUV fell sharply in the last year, the subcompact Toyota Yaris and midsize Toyota Camry had gains. PERCENT CHANGE

Top selling vehicles in U.S. By segment, in thousands of cars sold

Pickup Ford F-Series

-19.5%

Midsize Toyota Camry

5.6%

Large SUV Chevy Tahoe

-29.4%

April 2007 April 2008

Subcompact Toyota Yaris

58.1% 0

10

20

30

40

50

Source: Ward’s AutoInfoBank

60 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER ❘ FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2008

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BUYERS: Close shopping prized FROM A1 6.5 months in all of King County during that time. Most experts consider six months of inventory the balance point between buyers and sellers. Inventory topped nine months in Skyway and Enumclaw, while some suburbs, such as Graham and Gig Harbor, have more than a year’s worth of homes on the market. Inventories remain relatively low in popular urban areas such as North Seattle, in part because they started out lower than in other places. But these urban inventories also have risen more slowly than those elsewhere. “The urban locations are still quite strong,” said Bob Melvey, assistant manager of Windermere Real Estate’s Ballard office, whose research shows King County is a buyer’s market, Seattle on the buyer’s end of a balanced market and North Seattle on the seller’s side. Stacey Brower, the John L. Scott Real Estate agent representing the Mathiases, said she sees strong demand for affordable homes in the North End of Seattle, up to 100th Street. “If it’s clean and livable under $400 (thousand), it moves pretty quick,” she said. Buyers say they look for urban areas with a lot going on.

“(We) just really have enjoyed the variety of neighborhoods and the close proximity to restaurants and grocery stories and the post office, and parks and recreation,” Erin Mathias said. “It’s a pretty central location to where my husband and I work.” Ybarra had his commute in mind also. “I haven’t driven since 1990. I pretty much bus it and walk it everywhere,” he said. “There had to be a bus line nearby. There had to be amenities nearby.” Many prospective buyers say they want “walking neighborhoods,” Brower said. “They want to be able to get up on Saturday morning and walk to a coffee shop and get a paper, or walk to a restaurant on Friday night.” Melvey also has noticed an increasing interest in walkability over the past five years, he said. “It’s really wanting to be walking distance to a sense of community.” Deborah Arends, an agent with RE/MAX Northwest Realtors, said she closed 66 sales in two Ballard ZIP codes in March, up from 60 in March 2007. Inventory has averaged 4.4 months north of the Ship Canal and west of Interstate 5 over the past seven months. “The commute is not getting

SCOTT EKLUND / P-I

The entrance to the Belgrove townhome development in Renton.

any better, so I think people really want to be closer in to the city,” Arends said. Buyers also like that Ballard has its own sense of community, she said. “People want to be able to walk to things.” Matthew Gardner, a local land-use economist who works with developers, said it makes sense that urban-neighborhood markets are holding up better than others. “Those with more substantive fundamental reasons why (prices) went up, i.e. proximity to job centers, are going to be more protected,” he said. While some buyers wait to see how low prices will get in the slow market, Ybarra was confident that prices in his target area would stay strong. “I picked a good area,” he said. The Mathiases started look-

ing at homes unsure they were ready to buy, but became serious about upsizing from their onebedroom apartment because they’re expecting their first child in October. “I think if we weren’t having a child, we might have waited longer,” Erin Mathias said. They found many townhouses on the market, but didn’t like their layouts, small yards and views of other townhouses. Most of the traditional houses they saw needed a lot of work. They put in an offer below asking price on one house, but lost out to a better offer. And they didn’t even bother trying for another house because several bidders already had pushed up the price. Eventually, their offer was accepted on a Greenwood house on the market for a couple of weeks (another offer came in af-

JAIL: City leaders won’t discuss possible sites FROM A1 a regional one, Seattle needs to find locations that could accommodate one, Cornwall said. The other cities in the group are doing the same thing, she said. “We would all need to bring sites to the table to look at together,” Cornwall said. City officials are not prepared to say where any of these potential jail sites are, or even how many are being considered, though Ceis said the list is in the “high teens.” “I’m not going to comment on specific neighborhoods,” he said. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate at this time.” One worry for city leaders is the possible opposition from neighbors of any new jail. But

the other concern, city officials said, is financial. They don’t want landowners raising their prices if they learn that the city might want to buy their properties for a jail. The basic criteria for any new jail in Seattle are that it should be on a parcel 7 acres or larger and that it should be close to a major arterial or freeway. Planners are also likely to look at environmental concerns, the proximity of schools or residential areas, and how far the site is from courts. “There’s a long list of criteria,” Cornwall said. “You’ll never find one site that’s perfect on everything.” The city has already hired a public relations firm, The Keller Group, which plans to interview 50 community leaders about

concerns that building a new jail might raise. After the city reaches a decision on whether to join other cities in a regional jail, or go it alone, public forums are likely to follow. “We’re going to want a lot of public input on this,” Cornwall said. Ceis acknowledged that if Seattle does decide to build a city jail, controversy will follow. “It’s one of those facilities that everybody knows we need. They would just like it out of sight, out of mind,” he said. “We really don’t have an option. The county is running out of capacity.” P-I reporter Hector Castro can be reached at 206-448-8334 or [email protected].

Body parts found in concrete at missing man’s home THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CORTEZ, Colo. – Dismembered body parts encased in concrete buckets were found at a missing man’s home, and Jeremiah Raymond Berry, his 20-year-old son, was arrested on suspicion of murder, the sheriff

said Thursday. The remains were found in three places, including the family home of Jack Berry, 42, who relatives said had been missing for a few months. Sheriff Gerald Wallace said a CT scan done at a hospital found the body parts in the buckets. Investigators were awaiting tests

terward, too late to compete with theirs). “It’s just a really solid, wellbuilt home and the floor plan makes sense,” Mathias said. Ybarra, who found ample selection, said his was the sole offer during negotiations over and financing of the unit. “We initially went in with a lower offer than what they were asking for, then they came back with ‘absolutely not,’ ” he said. “But they did contribute toward the down (payment).” So what does this all mean? Some homes still are selling above asking price with multiple offers, without contingencies for financing or inspection. But those with less-ideal prices and conditions are sitting much longer than they would have a year ago, even in popular neighborhoods. Despite their relative strength, North Seattle neighborhood inventories over the past seven months have doubled, on average, from the same months a year earlier. “The sellers that are doing well are really working with the buyers,” Arends said. “You can’t just draw a line in the sand and expect another buyer to come up tomorrow.” P-I reporter Aubrey Cohen can be reached at 206-448-8362 or [email protected]. Read his Real Estate News blog at blog.seattlepi.com/realestatenews.

WESTERN BELLEVUE HAS SLOWED The strength of neighborhoods close to jobs and shopping has not extended to the area in and around central and western Bellevue. Inventory in the area – from Interstate 405 west to Lake Washington and from Interstate 90 to just north of state Route 520 – averaged more than 10 months from September through March, up from about 3 months in the same period a year earlier. The East Bellevue area, in contrast, has averaged just 5.8 months of inventory in recent months. Matthew Gardner, a local land-use economist, was not sure what caused the slowing west of I-405, but noted the median house that sold in that area in March fetched $1.2 million – just $7,000 below the median on Mercer Island, King County’s most expensive area. Higher interest rates for big loans, particularly since August, have helped slow high-end sales, and $1.2 million is out of the reach of many of those seeking a home in urban areas. “It can be attributed to pricing,” Gardner said. The Northwest Multiple Listing Service is scheduled to release April housing statistics Monday.

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to determine whether the dismembered body was Berry’s. “It’s not like your normal homicide where you have a body lying there, and you can identify him,” he said. “There were some body parts in two buckets of concrete.” Wallace said parts of the body were still missing.

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Seattle P-I Newspapers In Education Skills for Ever yday Living presents

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions 8 of

20 Beans, Birds and Biodiversity

Earth’s Resources Earth produces everything that human beings need to survive — food, water, shelter and energy — as well as the beauty and diversity of nature. Does this mean that we can expect our planet to keep meeting our needs forever, no matter how we use its resources? Consider these facts: • During modern times, half of the planet’s tropical rain forests have been destroyed or degraded • On average, three unique plant and animal species become extinct every hour 1

Variety Is the Spice of Life! The health of the planet depends on the health of its many ecosystems. An ecosystem is a community of organisms (plants, animals, fungi and bacteria) that function as a unit together with their environment. The interdependence among diverse organisms and their environment defines and shapes an ecosystem. When any species is taken out of an ecosystem, the entire ecosystem is affected. The variety of life in all its forms is called “biodiversity.” Unfortunately, the world’s biodiversity is disappearing. Each year as many as 27,000 species of animals, plants, insects and microorganisms vanish forever.2 Mountain gorillas, giant pandas and snow leopards are just a few of the more well-known animal species on the brink of extinction. Many scientists believe that between 20 percent and 50 percent of all species on Earth could disappear in the next 30 years.3 Loss of habitat is the main threat to terrestrial species that are classified as “threatened” or “endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

In the developing world, many farmers cultivate a single cash crop such as coffee or cocoa rather than produce staple food crops. In the 1980s, to meet rising worldwide demand for coffee, forests in Latin America and other developing regions were extensively cut and replaced with high-yield coffee trees that grow in the sun. This resulted in hillside erosion and habitat loss for many species, especially for birds like the western tanager that depend on the shade of the forest for survival. Additionally, the extensive use of pesticides to maximize coffee tree yields often pollutes nearby rivers and the lungs of coffee workers. Agriculture workers in the coffee industry often toil for long hours in difficult conditions, and many small coffee farmers earn prices for their coffee that are less than the costs of production. This perpetuates a cycle of poverty and debt, as farmers borrow money to get from one coffee season to the next. Thankfully, of the 25 million coffee farmers in the world, approximately 1 million farming households in the Southern Hemisphere alone have already improved their living conditions as a result of sustainable coffee production.4 The United States consumes about one-fifth of the world’s coffee, more than any other single country. Fortunately, people in the U.S. can now purchase “shade-grown,” “organically certified” and “fair trade” coffee. Shade-grown coffee promotes higher biodiversity than sun coffee because it can be grown without clearing forests. Organic coffee is grown without the use of pesticides, which is a benefit to biodiversity and farmers’ health. Fair Trade certification assures consumers that a fair price is paid to coffee farmers. To become Fair Trade certified, an importer must pay a minimum price per pound, provide credit to farmers and offer technical assistance such as learning organic farming techniques.

NIE offers FREE and engaging school programs. Chapter locations vary and are posted online each day at seattlepi.com/nie. To register for NIE, visit us online or call 206/652-6289.

The dominant player in the world coffee market is Starbucks, holding about 25 percent of the world market share. Since 1998, Starbucks has developed programs to lessen its environmental impact by promoting biodiversity and economic well-being. These practices include ecologically sound growing and harvesting, reduction of emissions during roasting, use of recycled materials for the storage and transport of beans and use of recycled paper coffee cups. A portion of Starbucks coffees are shade-grown varieties and purchased at fair-trade prices.

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Many other coffee roasters and sellers are also promoting sustainable coffee production. Some coffee roasters have gone a step further than buying Fair Trade certified beans by directly purchasing the beans from coffee farmers rather than buying them from a broker. This practice is called “direct trade.” Purchasing a cup of coffee may seem like a small choice, but consider the millions of cups of coffee consumed each day. All of our small choices have a large collective impact. By making choices to sustain Earth’s ecosystems, we can help the planet continue to meet basic human needs.

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Take Action!

1 E. O. Wilson, “The Diversity of Life” (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999). 2 Ibid. 3 Louis Harris and Associates, “Biodiversity in the Next Millennium,” 1998 poll conducted on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History, http://research.amnh.org/biodiversity/crisis/crisis.html. 4 International Institute for Sustainable Development, “IISD Brews Up Sustainable Coffee Report,” September 18, 2003. http://www.iisd.org/ media/2003/sept_18_2003.asp

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