According to a recent study by JLL, real estate investors are putting their money into cities with strong technological economies: GeekWire reports that the study “finds a correlation between the real estate investment dollars spent in a community and the strength of its innovation economy.”
Read MoreLinkedIn recently released their monthly Workforce Report, which outlines national and local employment trends using data obtained by LinkedIn users. Here I outline key trends from Seattle’s report. In November 2018, hiring was 1.2 percent higher than it was at this same time last year, though seasonal adjustments revealed numbers slightly (0.2 percent) lower in November than October.
Read MoreS&P Dow Jones recently released the Case-Shiller Home Price Index for August 2018, revealing that Seattle home price growth continues to slow. Up until just two months before that, Seattle led the nation in single-family home price gains for 21 consecutive months, but that run was ended as Las Vegas took over the lead.
Read MoreWeWork, an international co-working space provider, is greatly adding to its Emerald City footprint, as a recent report by Colliers International reveals that WeWork signed the two largest leases in Seattle in the second quarter of 2018, securing 120,000 square feet of office space at Metropolitan Park East, and an additional 115,000 at 1201 3rd Avenue. Seattle ranked tenth on the list of the nation’s top office markets, but its performance is quite stellar given the strength of WeWork and e-commerce giant Amazon.
Read MoreSeattle has now topped the nation in home price growth on the S&P/CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index for eighteen months in gains that are once again widening on a monthly basis. Despite slipping slightly last summer, February’s monthly increase exceeded January’s by 1.74 percent, representing an average price increase of 1% per month over the last twelve months.
Read MoreAccording to an article recently published by Bloomberg, home prices in San Francisco have continued to soar in the first few months of 2018, as the median sale price reached $1.6 million in the first quarter, “an almost 24 percent jump from a year earlier.”
Read MoreAs Mike Rosenberg of Seattle Times reports, “it’s not just housing prices: Seattle is not the bargain it used to be for companies, either.” Though the Emerald City was historically a bargain compared to other larger cities, “the city’s recent boom driven by Amazon and other tech companies has propelled Seattle up the ranks of the nation’s most expensive places to rent an office, passing Chicago and Los Angeles just in the last three years.” During the three year period, Seattle office rents increased a staggering 31 percent, “about 2 ½ times faster than the national average.”
Read MoreAfter a slight dip in home price growth from September to October, home prices in Seattle have begun their upward trek once again, as the index ended November 2017 at 0.18%. As Case Shiller noted in their official report, the highest year-over-year gains among the top 20 cities belonged to Seattle, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. “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.”
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