A report from GeekWire. "Mountain View, Calif. passed a tax similar in structure to Seattle’s head tax Tuesday. It will charge businesses up to $149 per employee, raising millions of dollars to help the city tackle issues like housing costs and traffic. Larger companies will have to pay more per employee than small ones, with Google paying 60 percent of the tax revenue."

"But Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman stressed that Seattle has made strides toward correcting its housing crisis that San Francisco has not. 'There’s this narrative of despair where we haven’t done anything and can’t do anything and I really take exception to that,' he said. 'I think that HALA was actually a major step forward. The reason that Seattle home prices have started to soften is because there’s been so much construction in the city. Rents are not rising because there’s a glut of homes for sale and for rent and I never thought I would say that but it’s almost directly because the city worked with builders to solve a problem.'"

"The cost of housing in Seattle is dropping dramatically. Home prices have declined $80,000 from their record high in the spring and rents have flatlined. But that doesn’t mean that the Seattleites most in need are seeing relief. It’s still one of the nation’s most expensive places to live, and affordable housing construction has not kept pace with the number of people who need it."

From The Olympian. "Sales of single-family homes slowed for the fourth consecutive month in October, although there were still plenty of signs that the local housing market remains strong, according to new Northwest Multiple Listing Service data."

"Sales slowed in October, just as they did in September, August and July. Windermere Olympia owner Steve Garrett thinks several factors are at work: Some of the slow down is seasonal, some of it is due to slightly higher mortgage interest rates, and finally this: It had to happen."

"'Something had to give,' he said. 'We couldn’t maintain the pace we were at.'"

"In other words, the local housing market has gone from frenzied to something approaching a more normal market, Garrett said. That transition is being played out a little more dramatically in King County, the data show."