Quote from @Jack Seiden:
Quote from @Ken M.:
Quote from @Jack Seiden:
Quote from @Chris Seveney:
@Jack Seiden exactly. My neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods have rarely had a home listed last 3 years and when it is it’s pending within a week.
Exactly, everyone taking about this clearly also doesn’t live in the area if they think it’s a company town, I cannot think of anyone I know that has two government employees in their household, and most government employees I know could easily get a good job in the private sector. It’s very hard for me to see almost anyone I can think of giving up thier mortgage that’s cheaper than renting in most cases because of acute financial distress, certainly the region could feel pain as people cut back in other ways like eating out, travel etc. but the number of people who will be forced to sell I suspect is in the low single digits.
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I don't live there, I don't buy there. But:
Talk is that over 200,000 probationary government employees, 14,000 permanent US AID employees, thousands of IRS employees, thousands of Dept Of Education employees and a long list of other departments are about to or have gotten more thousands of layoff notices. What is being reported is that outside of those numbers, an additional 70,000 government employees have already selected an early buyout rather than get fired or have to go back to the office.
Are there really that many available high paying jobs in the area to absorb these people?
So only about 15% of the federal government works in the dc metro area, only about 20% of the metro area works for the federal government, obviously if every single job that was cut was in the dc region, we’d be screwed, but again only 15% of the federal work force is here. And getting entirely into speculation if doge really wants to cut the federal work force, an idea I’m not totally opposed to, centralizing operations and closing your Cleveland field office, or your St. Louis branch makes a more sense than cutting jobs in your central location.
I agree that the job cuts are being spread around. I think it has been mentioned to move entire centers of Departments "out" of D.C. to midwestern states to get the concentration of power shifted away and more diverse. It would make lobbyists jobs more challenging. ;-)
But regarding the D.C. market
From old "legacy news" station: (so, I can't be sure of it's accuracy)
"President Donald Trump’s moves to fire thousands of federal government workers have coincided with a surge in jobless claims in Washington, D.C., that could get worse as the efforts intensify.
Since Trump has taken office, nearly 4,000 workers in the city have filed for unemployment insurance as part of a surge that began at the start of the new year, according to Labor Department figures not adjusted for seasonal factors."
In all, just shy of 7,000 claims have been filed in the six weeks of the new year,
or about 55% more than in the prior six-week period."
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I think it's probably not the high end positions as of now, it's probably positions where it takes two incomes in the family to make ends meet. Losing one of those positions makes a big impact of families in that income group. On top of that, if people have to start paying for child care while they go back to the office, even if they have two incomes, it's like losing an income.
I think the cuts have to be made, but I think it will also add inventory to the housing market as people decide they just can't afford D.C. or it's suburbs anymore.
