OLYMPIA — A cooling housing market has helped cut about $132 million from the state’s expected income, dropping the government’s total surplus to less than $1.4 billion as Gov. Chris Gregoire and lawmakers prepare to update the state budget.
ChangMook Sohn, the state’s chief economist, said the income drop was the first major setback in quarterly revenue projections in about four years. Still, Sohn called the lower income numbers “clearly a very minor fine-tuning, rather than a major change.”
Strong real estate and construction markets have pushed the state’s economic fortunes in recent years, and the state has been relatively insulated from national housing-market weaknesses that have stung mortgage lenders.
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