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: < $304,986 (up 0.3%)
- Mid Tier: $304,986 – $483,799
- Hi Tier: > $483,799 (up 0.1%)
First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through September 2015.
Here’s a zoom-in, showing just the last year:
All three tiers were up month-over-month yet again in September, however in the low and high tiers the gains were considerably smaller than a month earlier. The high tier saw the smallest gain of the group.
Between August and September, the low tier increased 0.3 percent, the middle tier rose 0.3 percent, and the high tier gained 0.2 percent.
Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from January 2003 through September 2015.
Year-over-year price growth was up in the middle and high tiers compared to August, but down in the low tier. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of September – Low: +9.0 percent, Med: +7.9 percent, Hi: +8.4 percent.
Lastly, here’s a decline-from-peak graph like the one posted earlier this week for the various Case-Shiller markets, but looking only at the Seattle tiers.
Current standing is 12.9 percent off peak for the low tier, 6.4 percent off peak for the middle tier, and 0.8 percent off peak for the high tier.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2015-11-24)