The 1878 Case for Buying the Dip in Seattle Real Estate
An editorial from the Seattle Intelligencer advises that despite hard times, the current low prices of labor and building materials make it the perfect time for working families to secure their own homes.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Under the heading 'Homes for Poor Men,' the Tribune of Thursday evening very practically and truthfully says: Now is the time for the poor men of Seattle to secure homes. Eligible residence lots have not been so low in price for six years as they are today. Carpenters who couldn't be got for less than four dollars a day in the past are gladly taking two dollars and two dollars and a half a day. Nails, cloth, paper, and paint are twenty to fifty percent cheaper than three or four years ago, while brick, lime, and hauling are down to bedrock in price. Lumber is unprecedentedly low, in fact, has suffered a heavy decline this week, selling now at ten dollars a thousand feet, and dressed at ten dollars, with laths being offered at two dollars. But our advice, we suppose, will be unheeded. People don't always do as they ought to, but more frequently as they see others doing. By-and-by there will be a dozen dwellings going up simultaneously. A fit of building contagion will ensue, and the number will quickly increase to twenty and fifty and perhaps a hundred. Lots will be in demand, and the call for teams, for labor and for material will be more than can be supplied. Everybody will then want lots and houses, and then they will pay for them one half more than they need to do today.
“People don't always do as they ought to, but more frequently as they see others doing.”
This 1878 advice captures a timeless Seattle anxiety: the fear that if you don't buy into the city when the market dips, you'll be priced out when the next 'building contagion' hits. While the materials have shifted from wood and brick to glass and steel, the cycle of market crashes and rapid-fire development remains the city's defining rhythm.
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