Let’s check out the three price tiers for the Seattle area, as measured by Case-Shiller. Remember, Case-Shiller’s “Seattle” data is based on single-family home repeat sales in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.
Note that the tiers are determined by sale volume. In other words, 1/3 of all sales fall into each tier. For more details on the tier methodologies, hit the full methodology pdf. Here are the current tier breakpoints:
- Low Tier: < $296,017 (up 1.5%)
- Mid Tier: $296,017 – $471,764
- Hi Tier: > $471,764 (up 1.4%)
First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through May 2015.
Here’s a zoom-in, showing just the last year:
All three tiers were up month-over-month again in May, but with smaller gains across the board than we saw between March and April.
Between April and May, the low tier increased 1.1 percent, the middle tier rose 1.9 percent, and the high tier gained 1.1 percent.
Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from January 2003 through May 2015.
Year-over-year price growth shrank slightly in the high and low tiers, but grew in the middle tier. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of May – Low: +10.3 percent, Med: +7.8 percent, Hi: +6.7 percent.
Lastly, here’s a decline-from-peak graph like the one posted yesterday, but looking only at the Seattle tiers.
Current standing is 15.0 percent off peak for the low tier, 8.5 percent off peak for the middle tier, and 2.7 percent off peak for the high tier.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2015-07-28)