Seattle Leads Nation in Home Price Growth for 20 Consecutive Months
S&P CoreLogic Case Shiller recently released their Home Price Index for April 2018 and in news that won’t come as a shock to many, Seattle has now led the nation in home price growth for 20 months in a row, marking the second longest streak in the history of the entire index. At 13.1% year-over-year growth, the Emerald City showed impressive gains from March through April, with increases of 2.8 percent and 2.7 percent respectively, the first time the city has experienced back-to-back increases above 2.25 percent since May of 2013.
Though Las Vegas was close behind Seattle’s year-over-year increase—at 12.7 percent—none of the other Pacific Coast gateway cities came very close to Seattle with the exception of San Francisco, which reported a gain of just under 11 percent. Looking at the full 20-City Composite Index, Seattle’s gain was nearly double the 6.6 average increase. The chart below illustrates the widening shortfalls amidst Seattle’s trends:
It should be noted that the Case Shiller Index covers repeat sales of residential homes within King, Snohomish and Pierce counties (not just within city limits), which means that some of the gains reported by the index are a symptom of buyers “driving to affordability” into the exurbs. For comparison, the chart below illustrates the annual increases for the median price in April 2018 throughout the Seattle metropolitan region in all three counties in addition to the city of Seattle:
For Seattle’s comparative performance on the Case-Shiller Index, see the chart of the Index trends below; and for more details, download the S&P Dow Jones Case-Shiller summary report.
