Seattle Home Prices Fastest-Growing in Spring

Seattle had the fastest-rising home prices this spring, driven by value gains of the cheapest homes in the region, including outlying areas like Tacoma and Everett.

The median single-family home in the Seattle area cost 13.6 percent more YoY in May, per the monthly Case-Shiller home price index. The cheaper segment of homes gained about 18 percent of value, while the top tier homes in Seattle had home price growth at about 12 percent. The typical house in Seattle now costs $813,000, whereas a median house in nearby Snohomish County is about $511,000. The Seattle Times reports that Las Vegas had the second-fastest gains again, growing by 12.6 percent.

It was the 21st month in a row that the Seattle region led the nation in home price gains, the second longest streak since records began in 1987. Portland had topped the nation for 23 consecutive months in the early ’90s. The last time home prices in the Seattle area rose this fast was during the housing bubble in the middle of last decade, when prices grew at an unsustainable rate of as much as 18 percent a year before crashing back down during the recession.

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