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: < $399,336 (up 2.0%)
- Mid Tier: $399,336 – $624,393
- Hi Tier: > $624,393 (up 1.6%)
First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through April 2019.
Here’s a zoom-in, showing just the last year:
All three tiers rose month-over-month in April. The largest increase was in the low tier.
Between March and April, the low tier increased 1.6 percent, the middle tier rose 1.0 percent, and the high tier climbed 1.2 percent.
Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from January 2003 through April 2019.
Year-over-year price growth is falling in all three tiers, with the high tier having flipped to year-over-year losses as of February. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of April – Low: +4.6 percent, Med: +<0.1 percent, Hi: -1.8 percent.
Lastly, here’s a change-from-peak graph like the one in the national post with all of the Case-Shiller markets, but looking only at the Seattle tiers.
Current standing is 27.7 percent above the 2007 peak for the low tier, 28.3 percent above for the middle tier, and 31.5 percent above for the high tier.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2019-06-25)