Okay, let’s have a look at how local home prices compare to local incomes. This is basically the same thing we’re looking at when we talk about affordability, but with interest rates taken completely out of the picture. First, let’s check out the ratio between home prices and King County median household income data from…
Category: Features
Big Picture 2011: Price to Rent Ratio
Big Picture Week 2011 continues with an updated look at Seattle’s price to rent ratio. Here’s our chart of single-family home prices divided by annual rent: Another chart with dramatic improvement since last year’s Big Picture Week. When last we checked in on this measure (June 2010 data), the ratio was 20% above its 1990-2001…
Big Picture 2011: Examining Home Affordability
Let’s have another look at home affordability in King County. First up, the affordability index. The affordability index is based on three factors: median single-family home price as reported by the NWMLS, 30-year monthly mortgage rates as reported by the Federal Reserve, and estimated median household income as reported by the Washington State Office of…
Big Picture 2011: Case-Shiller HPI Rate of Increase
It’s time for another Big Picture Week on Seattle Bubble, in which we’ll examine a number of local home price factors and economic fundamentals from a higher level than we usually do. By eschewing our usual focus on month to month changes and taking a step back to look at trends over the last few…
Friday Flashback: “Just get on the up escalator!”
I was browsing through some old posts when I came across this one from April 2006, in which I highlighted an email I received from a local real estate salesman: Regardless of what happens with the bubble the longer you wait to purchase a home the harder it will become. The only time I would…