there's no place like home

A family emergency means our Chicago trip has been canceled. I'm still reading the same books, though, and will have comments up when I'm through.

Meanwhile, for middle class folks trying to find a house in Seattle, there's no place for a home.

King County's median household income in 2003 was $57,857, which allowed buyers easy accessibility to 28 areas — seven within Seattle city limits — whose median home prices were $256,000 or less, a Seattle Times home-price analysis showed. Median means half are more; half are less.

Fast forward to last year: House prices shot up, but incomes barely rose, so median-income buyers found even fewer neighborhoods where they could afford the median-priced home — just nine in the county, including one in the city.

Read it all to see how the housing market is squeezing the middle class. Our area, with its blooming developments, might not be far behind.