In the wake of the 2008 Recession, Snohomish County home sale prices have dramatically increased every year since 2014. Measuring price change from a starting point (the year 2000) on a percentage basis, instead of in dollar amounts, allows a comparison of communities that are otherwise quite different, for example Arlington and Mukilteo. Beneath these percentages remain the dollar values, and it is important to note they have all been adjusted for inflation, which makes this graph even more shocking.
What this graph shows is in the post-recession world (2015 to present), home prices have exploded from their baseline values in 2000. While 2000 to 2014 (capturing pre-Recession, Recession, and Post-Recession) averages out to prices increasing 27% faster than incomes, the next 6.5 years represents an increase of 72% over household income.1
The story this graph of SFR price change tells is that from 2000 to 2006, prices were rising at a steady pace across Snohomish County, then experienced explosive growth in 2006 and 2007, before slowing as the Recession occurred, and then crashing until 2013 (in most places). Following the Recession, the recovery from that price crash has been an entirely different animal than the turn of the early 2000’s, and prices have recovered and continued growing without any sign of slowing. As discussed in the Housing Stock post, this increase in prices is driven by a scarcity in housing units. Even the current economic headwinds facing the country are likely to only slow price growth, not reverse it (the one exception, for now, being the Town of Darrington showing negative price change on net in the last 2 years).
There is more nuance when answering the question of housing accessibility that will be covered in other articles, largely relating to federal interest rates rising or falling.
In this piece the fundamental takeaway is that we are seeing across-the-board price increases that are driven by scarcity in housing. Except for Darrington, this rise in prices spares no city, and no household.
The impact on townhome and condominium sale prices, again based on percentage change and allowing an apples-to-apples comparison to SFR, and across cities, tells largely the same story. Some cities, like Index and Gold Bar, have no townhome or condominium sales. For those that do, the story is of explosive price growth post-recession, and a less recession-impacted market of condominium and townhome sales.
Deeper looks at the data in each Snohomish County City and Town is provided via the links below, and looking at all housing types present in those jurisdictions. These pages are less verbose, except for an analysis of what story the data tells us.