By MBAKS Senior Policy Analyst Allison Butcher

On Sept. 15, the third annual Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties Housing Summit drew a large crowd as we addressed our region's housing affordability crisis.

Governor Jay Inslee offered the keynote speech highlighting the need to produce more housing units and find greater efficiencies in our permit and regulatory processes. Other speakers included Windermere economist Matthew Gardner; Solid Ground President and CEO Gordon McHenry Jr.; John DesCamp of Washington Trust Bank; and Peter Orser, the director of the University of Washington's Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies.

An exclusive video detailing the struggles families face buying a home in today's market was produced for the Summit. You can also view photos from the event.

Next Steps

The Housing Summit helps launch and build momentum for your association's legislative priorities in Olympia. Housing affordability will be the focal point of those efforts in 2017 and beyond. The MBA has identified a number of areas where we plan to focus our advocacy efforts with the hope of improving housing affordability for all of our region's residents.

Specifically, the MBA will continue working to focus policy action on our region's buildable land supply; restore and protect vested development rights; address condo construction defect liability; ensure funding for housing and homeless programs occurs parallel with increased housing supply; and incentivize affordable housing. We have shared these priorities with Governor Inslee's Affordable Housing Advisory Board (AHAB) and are making sure our voice is heard in Olympia.

The MBA also surveyed Housing Summit attendees to get their thoughts on how we can address the housing affordability crisis and we are taking this feedback into consideration. Ideas include such things as increased densities in single family neighborhoods, more focus on multifamily housing, reforming the Growth Management Act, concentrating resources on infrastructure, addressing the skilled labor shortage in the construction industry, and taking further steps to address the homeless crisis.

For more on the specific ideas discussed at the Housing Summit, the Seattle King County REALTORS® wrote this re-cap of the event and the Lens featured it here.

This week, we visited Dunn Lumber, where we talked to Jim Coshow about Dunn's giving philosophy and involvement with Rampathon.

Thank you to Dunn Lumber for making Rampathon possible!

By MBAKS Senior Policy Analyst Allison Butcher

Building Permits Up in Pierce County

Pierce County is experiencing an uptick in permit activity this year, unlike King and Snohomish counties where permits remain flat or down compared to the same period last year. Specifically, single family permits are up 17 percent in Pierce County, while multifamily permits are up 93 percent through September.

The Builders’ Bulletin is intended to provide a convenient way to track housing in our market and includes information from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, U.S. Census Bureau, Office of Financial Management and the Washington State Employment Security Department.

Download this month's report: