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The Seattle Area is Still Flourishing

·         Consumer confidence is the highest it has been since mid 2005

·         Interest rates are in the low 6’s for 30 year loans

·         Boeing: Employment up 12,000 people since last year

·         787 Biggest launch in history—first jet out in 2008

·         Microsoft: Employment increasing 4,000 per year

·         Crane Index: 31 cranes in the region—second only to Manhattan

·         Car license transfers: near record highs

·         Sea-Tac traffic: Setting new records each quarter

·         Commercial vacancy: Lowest level since 1999

o        King County 8%

o        Snohomish 11%

o        Pierce 17%

·         Listing to Pending Ratio: 4:1 (Stays a Seller’s market until we reach 5:1, then it becomes a Balanced Market)

·       While California suffers in the housing crisis, the economy of nearby Washington state is flourishing with strong job growth and some of the highest appreciation in home prices in the nation. Read more from this Reuter’s in depth article.

·       Seattle home values hottest in U.S.

     Prices up 6.9 percent over last year.
Seattle-area home appreciation has been the hottest in the nation for 11 months in a row, despite steadily slowing for the past year and a half, according to data released Tuesday 9/25.

     Read more from this Seattle PI article.

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Thinking of Identity Theft Insurance?

Here are some things to consider

With the increase in identity theft companies have begun offering programs labeled as ID Theft Insurance. Before you go out and purchase this coverage there are a few things that you might want to know.

For this article, I researched three services: PrivacyGuard offered by Staples, LifeLock.com and Debix.com

• Debix costs $89 per year or $7.41 per month
• The PrivacyGuard program offered by Staples costs $99 for 18 months or $5.50 per month
• LifeLock costs $120 per year or $10 per month

• All three provide insurance for the expenses associated with getting your ID back.
  • LifeLock offers $1,000
  • PrivacyGuard and Debix offer $10,000

   

• PrivacyGuard and LifeLock both provide technical help if your ID is stolen.
• Debix doesn't.

• PrivacyGuard and LifeLock both provide you with yearly credit reports from the 3 credit bureaus--which you can get free anyway.
• Debix doesn't.

• LifeLock and Debix use Fraud Alert as a means to protect you. You can place this with the credit bureaus yourself every 90 days for free.
  • Debix provides a much more complex system for contacting you if someone tries to apply for credit on your account.

  The hitch with Fraud Alert is that "once you activate an initial fraud alert, the consumer credit reporting agency must include the alert in your file and provide the alert along with any credit score generated using your file. The reporting agency receiving your initial fraud alert must have reasonable procedures in place to protect you from identity theft but is not required to call you in order to authorize new loans or activity related to your credit." Only if you have already been the victim of ID theft and have thus filed an Extended Fraud Alert are Creditors required to call or contact you in the manner you designate before authorizing a new credit account.

  So unless Debix and LifeLock are actually somehow filing an extended Fraud Alert for you--by lying about the fact that your ID has been stolen (and there's no indication that they are) there's no guarantee this system will actually work as advertised. At best it might be providing you with a false sense of security. The best thing about Fraud Alert is that it automatically removes you from all pre-approved credit and insurance offers for 2 years, thus reducing your junk mail load and the potential that someone might steal your mail and use the offers to steal you ID.

• The PrivacyGuard program uses daily credit reports and alerts from one of the Credit Bureaus to protect you.

The hitch with this is that you have to read those to determine whether there's a problem or not and you could easily get behind in checking them since they report every time someone checks your credit report along with alerts telling you if something 'suspicious' happens.

It appears that while placing a Fraud Alert might be helpful it really provides no guarantee for safety since no one is required to call you about opening new accounts--until after you've already had ID theft happen to you.

Daily monitoring your credit report is a good idea but it is by no means 'automatic' since you have to read the reports and alerts that come to you. Basically it’s the same thing as a fraud alert with you being the one monitoring the activity rather than the credit bureaus or the lenders.

If buying this kind of coverage gives you a sense security that’s fine. Just realize that it’s not really ID Theft Insurance, it’s credit information monitoring at best.

Just this past month the major credit bureaus have introduced a new way for you to combat ID Theft. For a fee they will place a security freeze on your account so that lenders and business cannot get access to your credit files or scores without your authorization. That makes it almost impossible for a thief to get a credit card in your name and damage your record. The Consumer Union’s “Guide to Security Freeze Protection” gives you all the information you need to use this new tool.

For more information on the pros and cons of this new service read Michelle Singletary's article, "Everyone can now put credit on ice" in the Seattle PI.