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: < $448,069 (up 0.3%)
- Mid Tier: $448,069 – $670,317
- Hi Tier: > $670,317 (up 0.4%)
First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through June 2020.
Here’s a zoom-in, showing just the last year:
The low and middle tiers both rose month-over-month in June, but the high tier fell slightly. Over the past year and a half the low tier has definitely been showing the most strength.
Between May and June, the low tier increased 1.1 percent, the middle tier rose 0.7 percent, and the high tier fell 0.1 percent.
Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from January 2003 through June 2020.
Year-over-year price growth is relatively strong in all three tiers, but not the highest it’s been. So far this year price growth seems to have peaked in April. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of June – Low: +9.1 percent, Med: +6.7 percent, Hi: +5.0 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 43.1 percent above the 2007 peak for the low tier, 39.4 percent above for the middle tier, and 39.6 percent above for the high tier.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2020-08-25)