But sales were up...a lot.

Mixed string of news about the market over the past year, which is why I'm so hesitant to say we have recovered. The economic and housing situation is not simple; many factors still at play that are influencing pricing, demand from buyers, and supply of housing being released.

Quoted: According to data collected by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS), the average sale price of a home in King County last month was $415,581, down from $421,521 in October and well off the average sale price of November 2008 of $440,062. The median (half sold for more, half for less) sale price in King County last month was $337,000, down from $349,950 in October and down from $365,000 in November 2008.

Not altogether surprising... it also explains why so many "repats" form their own communities when they return to India.

Quoted: India wants its emigrants and their offspring back, but many say the business climate is frustrating, and the workplace culture makes them feel unexpectedly foreign.

The worry is that, just like the cash for clunkers program, we're attracting all first-time buyers to buy now to buoy the health of the market, but that will reduce the amount of first-time buyers down the road, which could again hurt the market.

Quoted: Thanks in part to an $8,000 tax credit, first-time buyers accounted for a record 47 percent of all home purchases this year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Hm, I had no idea there was a huge toxic waste site in Washington state.

Quoted: If you want to win the stimulus sweepstakes, it helps to have one of the planet's nastiest toxic waste sites in your back yard.

Quoted: According to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure database, 6,495 properties entered some stage of foreclosure in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue region in the third quarter of this year. That translates into a 38 percent increase from a year ago, putting the region 95th out of 203 metro areas that RealtyTrac gauges.