Stacey Doerr

I was once a skeptic of rental housing "filtering" -- the theory that new "luxury" apartments pull up higher-income renters from moderate-priced rentals, thereby benefitting moderate-income renters, and on down the line. I am no longer a skeptic. I became a believer once I realized several mistakes I made in the analysis -- the same mistakes I see some of my peers making now. Here are those common mistakes among filtering deniers: 1) You must focus on higher-supplied neighborhoods. Macro analysis doesn't work nearly as well. The more you build, the more clearly you see "filtering" play out. When you include low-supply neighborhoods in the analysis, you're obscuring the real story. 2) You cannot rely on the industry's asset class definitions based on non-rent measures like amenities or building age. You need to more specifically look at apartments by rent level, which is the foundation of "filtering." It's broadly correlated with classes, but not the same thing. 3) You can't assume "more supply" = "high supply." Very common mistake. In the 2010s decade, as example, we just didn't build that many apartments -- even in the places we *think* we did. For example, Texas probably built more apartments than any other state and yet rents outpaced national average-- making it harder to detect impact of filtering (even if still present in form of rents growing less than they otherwise would have absent the new supply.) It's not just supply. It's supply relative to demand. And in the 2010s, supply generally didn't keep pace with demand. The 2023-24 period shows us more clearly what happens when you build truly A LOT of new apartments. Rents fall -- even among the lowest-rent properties. (See chart below.) 4) You got to talk to people with eyes/ears on the ground -- especially those operating apartments at differing rent levels in high-supplied submarkets. They'll help you better understand what to look for in the data. 5) You need to be open to admitting you were wrong.

Deranged Sen. Chris Murphy went on MSNBC and made the claim that RFK, Jr. “wants to kill our kids.” This type of irresponsible language and insane lies are purposely intended to inspire political violence. These people are sick and must be institutionalized.

Update 6:14 PM : On SR 520 westbound at Montlake Blvd (MP 1) there is a collision blocking all lanes.