local real estate news, statistics, and commentary without the sales spin.
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…
There have been a few stories in the Seattle Times recently about the rapid rise of local rents: August 24: Soaring rents force lifestyle changes September 23: Local apartment rents continue climbing So I thought it would be a good time to take a look at how rents are comparing to home prices, since they…
As promised in last week’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…
As volatile as interest rates and home prices have both been this year, I thought it would be good to make the affordability index more of a regular post. So how does affordability look as of July? Not great. The index fell below 100 (i.e. the median-priced home is affordable to a median-income household) for…