This month’s Where Next brings us to our neighbors in Walla Walla, Washington! Danielle Beebe, a Broker with Walla Walla Sotheby’s International Realty, graciously shared her perspective of this Pacific Northwest gem with our team. If this glimpse at the infamous wine country town in Eastern Washington peeks your interest, please reach out to us, we’d be more than happy to arrange an introduction!
Having briefly subsided from September into October, residential prices in Seattle resumed their upward trek, with the index turning positive by 0.18% in November. The official report from Case Shiller noted that “Seattle, Las Vegas, and San Francisco reported the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities. In November, Seattle led the way with a 12.7% year-over-year price increase, followed by Las Vegas with a 10.6% increase, and San Francisco with a 9.1% increase.”
The in-city housing market in our Emerald City has a split personality. Buy or rent, the message is the same – it’s going to cost more and more to live here. This fact is reigniting the debate between renting and homeownership and developers are listening.
Downtown Seattle is a very robust rental market, which has welcomed more than 12,500 new construction units since 2011. Despite this massive increase in supply, economist Brian O’Connor says rents have still grown by more than 40-percent over this term due to an imbalance with supply and demand. According to Zumper, Seattle is now in the top ten most expensive rental markets in the nation with a median price of $1,800 per month (half are more, half are less) for one-bedroom apartments. Average rents of newer apartment towers downtown can demand $3.50 to $4.25 per square foot, per month. So a 600 sq. ft. one bedroom could easily cost a renter $2,100 to more than $2,500 per month. That kind of monthly payment could service a healthy mortgage. Recently, Zillow stated that 22-percent of Seattle’s renters can afford to buy. They have the incomes and credit scores to own, so why don’t they?
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“We observe China as the soon-to-be largest economy and a wealth engine with a high propensity for its nationals to seek financial safe harbor and education overseas. Asian demographics are the fastest-growing segment in Washington State with the greatest number stemming from China.”
Other markets covered in the report include The United States, The United Kingdom, and Brazil. View more insights in our Luxury Life report.
