Seattle Housing Prices Through the Roof
Mike Rosenberg, Seattle Times business reporter in an article published on June 28, 2016 stated that Seattle-area home prices are continuing their torrid pace, setting another record and rising faster than any major city other than Portland, new data shows.
The monthly S&P/Case-Shiller Index released Tuesday showed single-family house prices across the Seattle metro area rose 10.7 percent in April compared with a year ago, about the same as the annual rise reported in each of the last two months. That is more than double the national average growth rate of 5 percent.
Nationally, home prices are still below their pre-recession peak. But last month, Case-Shiller reported that the Seattle region had for the first time surpassed its housing price high-point from 2007. Now, that record has already been broken, and at this rate the new one probably won’t last long, either: Local home prices have gone up for 15 straight months.
Changes in home prices in Seattle have traditionally aligned fairly closely with national trends, but lately the Seattle area has surged ahead of the rest of the country. So far this year, home prices across the Seattle area have soared at twice the national rate
Along with a growing economy and rising demand from homebuyers, the main ongoing cause of the cost surge is the severe shortage of homes on the market. Seattle has the smallest supply of houses relative to demand of any metro area in the country.