Why Seattle Sucks
In my lovely area of Seattle, the city council and the entire state government here are socialists. I live in the People's Republic of Seattle. The liberal government here believes that it is evil to make a profit.
1) Labor and Industries is a bullying mafia machine. According to my attorney, they are going after rehabbers this year. LNI believes that investors have a pile of cash and they believe you should hand over your money. With the amount of harassment and bullying that goes on, it amazes me that someone has not sued them yet and go personally after the assets of a harassing LNI inspector. I recorded a conversation where an LNI inspector was basically putting down our subcontractor because they were African American. We will never have affordable housing in Seattle because LNI increases the cost by 40%. Oh that's right, LNI is hard to sue because they are represented by the Attorney General.
2) AirBNB. The city of Seattle wants to restrict what you can Airbnb.
3) Rent Control. The next move will be rent control in Seattle on commercial apartments.
4) Equity Skimming. They don't believe you should make a profit as an investor so they restrict it so you cannot buy that good of a deal without violating the Distressed Home Consultant Law.
5) SEC Blue Sky laws. You have to file a Reg D rule 506(c) to borrow money from a private lender who is not in the normal business of lending. A little overboard?
6) Planning Departments. Seattle is okay here. But we keep hearing rumors that planning departments like Tacoma are so busy and they are blaming the investors. I have heard a rumor that they are purposely sabotaging investor permits so the investors go away. I am not so sure these are true but I have heard this more than once.
Interestingly, the government here wants to blame investor for causing the crash. Ironically, we will keep having real estate crashes because OF the government. As long as we run the printing press through qualitative easing, we will continually be going through real estate bubbles.
The sad thing is that these liberal policies make the rich richer. So while you do everything to try to bring the investor down, the reality Washington State is that you are making us wealthier. Keep restricting the supply of properties through your liberal laws and I will keep watching my properties go up in value. Supply and demand.
I have traveled the over 58 countries and Seattle is the most beautiful place on the planet. So I do love living here in Seattle. I've also run a business in the socialistic country of Australia and we here in Seattle are making some strides towards socialism.