WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term mortgage rates rose slightly this week, continuing to hover near all-time lows amid anxiety over the economy and housing market gut-punched by the shutdown spurred by the coronavirus pandemic. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year home loan edged up to 3.33% this week […]

Inslee's 30-point plan calls for keeping workers 6 feet apart at all times and making sure contractors provide protective equipment like masks, gloves and goggles, if needed.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Friday he will allow the return of some work on building projects in progress that were halted by his stay-at-home order issued on March 23.

Stricter requirements, including larger down payments and higher credit scores, will make it difficult for some folks to qualify for a mortgage, particularly first-time homebuyers.

Amid sickness, deaths and frustrations among some who are clamoring to return to life before the COVID-19 outbreak, Gov. Jay Inslee finds himself tested politically like never before.

As May rent deadlines approach, Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant and some other activists have added their voices to nationwide calls urging tenants to use tactics like rent strikes to push landlords and the government to cancel rent payments and provide other help.

In February, home prices in Seattle were increasing at 6%, year-over-year. But all bets are off as the coronavirus pandemic hit.

BALTIMORE (AP) — U.S. home sales showed signs of collapsing in March, as the number of contract signs plunged sharply because of the coronavirus outbreak. The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that its pending home sales index, which measures signed buyer contracts, plummeted a seasonally adjusted 20.8% in March from the prior month to […]

The rise in delinquencies, during a month when the opposite usually happens, is troubling to housing market watchers, but it doesn't yet spell a foreclosure boom like during the Great Recession.

Zumiez withholds rent for 718 stores. Small restaurants bargain with landlords. Deals to buy properties are called off. The ripple effects of the coronavirus crisis are shaking the commercial real-estate industry.

Here's what homeowners who are having trouble paying the mortgage need to know before seeking forbearance, a pause in payments.

The city council, however, rejected a proposal to exempt landlords with four or fewer housing units.

Typically, housing market activity strengthens through the spring before peaking in May. But last month, nearly every metric of housing market activity fell by double digits.

The rival Seattle-based digital brokerages reported stronger-than-expected revenue in the first three months of the year, but ended the quarter sunk in the red.

THE CREATORS: Through the elegant, artistic lights she designs, creates and installs, Conway transforms places, perceptions and experiences.

This is quite the elevated living experience: a seriously shiny, brand-new modern-and-maritime home designed to endure nature’s wildest mood swings.

Who needs a yard sale? In an effort to get rid of stuff before moving to a smaller house, this couple came up with a novel way to purge: let people in and tell them to take whatever they want.

At the corner of public and private, a new home sinks down to limit its exposure.

People move far less than they used to: Just 9.8% of Americans moved in the year ending in March, according to newly released data. That was the smallest share since the Census Bureau started tracking it in 1947.

The architect and the homeowner/artist have this remodel down to a fine art.

An architect and builder reteam to create a contemporary new home on the lot next door, filled with the couple's favorite things.

When Alyssa LeMay heard the strange music and sounds coming from her bedroom, she walked in expecting to find one of her sisters. But the room was empty. Then, as the 8-year-old wandered around her room alone, the mysterious song abruptly stopped. “Hello there,” a man’s voice said. It wasn’t Alyssa’s father, who was elsewhere […]

The Snohomish blogger and Instagram influencer shares warm and cozy holiday decorating tips from her new book.

Armed with a $450,000 budget and a dream that wouldn’t sink, Sarah J. Haggard joined the HGTV show “Home Afloat” and shared her water-life wishlist.

Prince Harry and wife Meghan have agreed to give up their royal titles and repay several million in housing expenses, stirring up another sensation in Britain. It wasn’t so long ago that some in the United Kingdom were upset about the renovations of the residence in question: Frogmore Cottage. On Saturday, Buckingham Palace announced the […]

THE ORIGINAL THREAD was a single strand — a simple string of vision and possibility. Kenny really wanted to hold a Super Bowl party downstairs. That’s the thing with threads, though. They’re so rarely self-contained. “We decided to take over the playroom, and then we just kind of kept going,” says architect Andrew Patterson, of […]

“OUR STORY WITH this house is kind of a long one,” says Megan, standing in the warm, wide-open kitchen of the modern new home she shares with her husband, Will; their two young daughters; and their 80-pound Labrador doggy, Steve. The fact that Megan is standing, smiling, in this warm, wide-open kitchen pretty clearly telegraphs […]

THE FIRST THING you notice about Bonnie Berk and Larry Kessler’s property in the Mount Baker neighborhood of Seattle is the formidable retaining wall. Accentuated with terra-cotta tiles and red brick, the wall provides double-sided access to the property via stairs, and was part of the original home design by Arthur Loveless. It’s a grand […]

Sarah Hurt started her International District business two or so years ago, “with two goals in mind,” she says: “to advocate for local artists, and to provide a curated collection of art that was ready for any interior design project.”

SO MUCH IS so sweet here — with virtually zero DIY experience, but decades of memories and dreams (and only two trips to the ER), Ty Warren successfully pulled off the lovely-on-many-levels remodel of his childhood home in Kenmore — but the sweetest might be how we learned of this sentimental act of derring-do-it-himself in […]

From baking a Japanese-style souffle cheesecake to making trivets out of wine corks, here's what our features staffers recently learned from YouTube videos.

GREAT BLUE HERONS alight — a lot — along this glistening stretch of Lake Union. Could be the impressive fishers simply have landed on the perfect, protected perch for that statue-standing thing they do — right up until they lightning-strike. Could be they’re doing that inquisitive-bird “Are You My Mother?” thing, imprinting on the mesmerizing […]

THERE ARE FAMILY HOMES … and then there is Mark and Gayle’s beautifully remodeled home in Tacoma’s Proctor District — which could have turned out much, much differently, if not for the way several unrelated family connections came into play: — Right up until the couple bought it, this was Gloria’s house — designed and […]

KEVIN AND KAREN had lots to look at when they were moving to Seattle from Bellevue. They looked in Madrona. They looked on Queen Anne. But Madison Park looked different. “We were drawn first and foremost to the neighborhood,” Kevin says. “Specifically, the Canterbury neighborhood. It’s really close to the lake, and has longtime residents. […]

The Pentagon has asked a federal court to give it 120 days to “reconsider certain aspects” of a controversial decision to award an important cloud computing contract known as JEDI to Microsoft, according to a court document made public Thursday. Amazon is suing the Defense Department over the decision, which it claims fell in Microsoft’s […]

Bill Gates is stepping down from the board of Microsoft Corp., the company he co-founded in 1975.

It was a rocky week on Wall Street, as most securities fell and some saw record declines. Seattle-area companies felt the pain as sharply as any.

Microsoft's executives, with headquarters just a few miles from one of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreaks, were among the first to confront the impact.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent an email Saturday to his 140,000-plus employees, telling them he shares their personal anxieties over the coronavirus and asking each to make a "small difference" to help others. In a Seattle Times interview beforehand, he detailed his emotions the past week steering the company while caring for his family.

Apple’s market value fell below $1 trillion as trading opened Monday, leaving Microsoft as the only U.S. stock above the 13-digit threshold. Apple shares fell as much as 4.9% at 9:40 a.m. in New York, bringing the iPhone maker’s market value to about $960 billion. In the wake of coronavirus, the company has been hampered […]

Sound Transit is suing Microsoft for land and access to build light rail from Overlake to downtown Redmond, and even claimed the software giant was creating risks of missing the agency's August 2024 goal to complete the project. The institutions differ by $17.5 million over how much Sound Transit should pay to buy land next to Highway 520, plus easement rights for worker access and equipment storage.

In arguably the most ambitious and unique procurement effort in company history, technology giant Microsoft is leveraging its global supply chain to bring tens of thousands of badly-needed medical supplies — including 240,000 N-95 surgical masks — to the Puget Sound in anticipation of coronavirus hospitalizations. Supplies began arriving on Monday.

Affirmed Networks helps build virtual networks for telecom customers using 5G technology.

As March ends, the first quarter's results include the biggest plunge ever in West Texas oil prices and the Dow's worst performance since 1987.

The company's chief technology officer says early detection of underlying health conditions could not only help treat patients and prevent the spread of future pandemics, but also reduce care costs for Americans

Microsoft hired Ruben Caballero, Apple's former executive in charge of wireless technologies, to work on mixed reality hardware and artificial intelligence technology.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization as “dangerous,” saying the payments should continue particularly during the global coronavirus pandemic. “Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” Gates tweeted early Wednesday. “Their work is […]

The 317-page report by the inspector general also found that giving the contract to a single company — Microsoft — rather than dividing it among competitors was "consistent with applicable acquisition standards."

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s process for awarding a highly lucrative cloud computing contract to Microsoft instead of Amazon was in line with legal and government purchasing standards, a government watchdog agency said Wednesday. The Defense Department inspector general found no evidence of White House interference in the contract award process. But the report said investigators […]

Microsoft's chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, spoke with The Associated Press about the pandemic's effects on his day-to-day responsibilities.