local real estate news, statistics, and commentary without the sales spin.
Local home prices gone from undervalued to overvalued in just a year. In January 2013, Seattle-area home prices as measured by the Case-Shiller Home Price Index were four or five percent below where local per capita incomes would suggest they should have been and one percent below where rents suggested. By December 2013, massive gains…
As promised in yesterday’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 mortgage…
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 January? Roughly the same place it’s been bouncing around since last June. The index inched back up to 103.6 from 100.8 in…
As promised in yesterday’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 mortgage…
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 November? Slightly improved from July, August, and September. The index inched back up to 104.7 (i.e. the monthly payment on a median-priced…