The bad news is coming in waves again. It all started with the banks, local and national. But, now it is making its way into every other industry in the area.Yesterday, it was this news about a layoff at Microsoft. Today, it was this news about a layoff at Starbucks.

 

No numbers have been posted for how many at Starbucks are set to lose their jobs. Over at Microsoft it looks like they have released 872 people locally and 1400 people overall. There are approximately 41,500 local employees and 96,000 worldwide for Microsoft.Those are hard numbers. Facts.

 

For each and everyone of those folks (and I know several) my heart goes out to you.

 

What does this do to the local real estate market? On the surface, I don't think it does much. Inevitably there will a few more houses to hit the market in the near future. Some will be in secure financial positions as they sell their house. Some will not be. They will be in danger of  foreclosures or short sales. They will be walking away from their dream home, their friends and neighbors, and more.

 

But if you dig a little deeper, not to minimize the harm to those 872 families, I think there will be a bigger psychological hit to our market. Microsoft announced that there are a further 3600 jobs (not sure how many of them will be local) that will be eliminated in the next 18 months.

 

Overnight, not only did we lose those local jobs, but now we have an additional 3600 families that are now wondering if their job will disappear in the next 18 months. Anyone that was thinking of taking advantage of the relatively low prices and buying a home... suddenly is not very motivated to do so. No one wants to buy a house that will become a financial anchor around their necks in 18 months.

 

The few buyers that were out there just hunkered down a little more! That isn't a fact I can measure in hard numbers, but I think it will be just as true in the near future.

 

There is good news... more on that next time...