local real estate news, statistics, and commentary without the sales spin.
County-wide statistics.
For some reason, a couple weeks ago the Seattle Times website featured a syndicated article about RealtyTrac’s “Vampire REO” nonsense, which in addition to being a completely worthless bit of non-news, was already weeks old when it appeared on the front page of the Seattle Times website. In the comments to the article I did…
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…
Let’s have a look at the latest data from the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to August data, Seattle-area home prices were: Up 0.5% July to August Up 13.2% YOY. Down 16.6% from the July 2007 peak Last year prices fell 0.1% from July to August and year-over-year prices were up 3.4%. Although the month-over-month…
As promised in last night’s affordability post, here’s an updated look at the “affordable home” price chart. In this graph I flip the variables in the affordability index calculation around to other sides of the equation to calculate what price home the a family earning the median household income could afford to buy at today’s…
Let’s take a look at how affordability is doing in the Seattle area after the last couple months of changes in home prices and interest rates. So how does affordability look as of September? Slightly better. The index inched back above 100 (i.e. the median-priced home is affordable to a median-income household) thanks to the…