Hill Day in Olympia

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Washington Association of Realtors' Hill Day at the State Capitol. It's an annual event, but my first time. Over 600 Realtors (the largest showing ever) came together discuss the state of the real estate market with legislators. With a massive state budget deficit, the real estate industry can be an easy target for new taxes. The current ones being considered in Olympia are to tax real estate services (commissions) as a sales tax and to double the current excise tax by making buyers, in addition to sellers, pay it. Needless to say, both of these would be devastating to the recovery of the real estate market in Washington. Many sellers are barely selling for more than they owe and a sales tax could turn a regular sale into a short sale very easily. On the buying side, first time home buyers are driving that market (I have 2 in escrow right now) and many of them are scraping together every last penny to pay their down payment and/or closing costs. Adding 1.78% tax to that could price them out of the market. It has been statistically proven that since 1960 the real estate industry has led Washington out of recessions. It makes no sense to me for our state to impose a crippling tax on the industry that must regain strength so the state can start growing again. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox, but as you can see it's a vitally important issue to our economy.

On the bright side, I had the chance to speak with 3 state legislators on Hill Day: Sen. Derek Kilmer and Reps Todd Kelley and Jan Angel. All three were very interested in the real estate industry and understood it's importance to the state's economy. This was the first time I've ever "lobbied" for any kind of cause and I really felt that it was productive. Definitely going back next year...