Homing in on Our Region's Housing Statistics

Despite headlines about a housing market cooldown and home prices dipping slightly compared to last month, median housing prices continue to rise year over year, with an 8.03% rise and a 22.29% rise in King and Snohomish counties, respectively, for combined single family and condo sales. Likewise, for-sale housing supply continues to drop, with both King and Snohomish counties—and much of the state—more accurately described as having weeks of supply, not months. Year over year, months of supply dropped 59% in King County and 37% in Snohomish County. There is at least some relief on the horizon, however, as year to date residential building permit activity is up 30% in our two-county region.

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Months' Supply of Housing Inventory

As of November 2021

	King County had 0.38 months' supply of inventory (down from 0.93 months' of inventory a year ago).
	Snohomish County had 0.24 months' supply of inventory (down from 0.38 a year ago).

Many industry analysts consider a four-to-six-month level as an indicator of a healthy market.

Source: Northwest Multiple Listing Service

Median Home Price

November 2021

	The median price of single-family homes and condos was $740,000 in King County and $658,505 in Snohomish County.
	For single-family homes only, the median price in King County rose 12.25%, from $730,500 a year ago to $820,000. The median price in Snohomish County rose 22.79%, from $566,000 to $695,000.
	In Seattle, the median price of single-family homes and condos was $765,000. The median price for single-family homes only was $850,000, a 3.66% increase from $820,000 in November 2020.

Source: Northwest Multiple Listing Service

Building Permit Activity

Jobs

	The seasonally adjusted Washington unemployment rate for November 2021 is 4.7%; for Seattle/Bellevue/Everett, it is 4.4%.
	Construction employment in Washington increased by 1,800 between October 2021 and November 2021. Total construction employment is 229,400 statewide and 110,200 for Seattle/Bellevue/Everett specifically.

Source: Employment Security Department: WA Employment Estimates (Seasonally Adjusted), November 2021 and Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Population

The Puget Sound region's population as of April 1, 2021 was 4,330,400. Over the past year, the region added 66,200 people, as follows:

Source: Office of Financial Management

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By MBAKS Senior Policy Analyst Allison Butcher

Recent building permit data for the Seattle metro area shows single-family and multifamily permits fell in King County by 8% and 26%, respectively, in September year-to-date compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, permits are up in Snohomish and Pierce counties during the same period.

The Builder's Bulletin is intended to provide a convenient way to track housing in our market and includes information from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, State of the Cities Data Systems, Office of Financial Management, and the Washington State Employment Security Department.

Download this month's report:

By Kate Wagner, Curbed Seattle

Until around 2007, McMansions mostly borrowed the forms of traditional architecture, producing vinyl Georgian estates and foam Mediterranean villas.

But in the last 10 years, this has begun to change: McMansions are now being constructed in architectural styles from the 20th century, specifically modernism. We are witnessing the birth and the proliferation of modernist McMansions: McModerns.

Though McModerns are commonly found in the places where modernism itself thrives—indoor-outdoor climates like the West Coast and the Southwest, and near liberal cities on the East Coast—they are also beginning to pop up in burgeoning tech hotbeds south of the Mason-Dixon, such as central North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia. McModern houses are following the trail left behind by NPR, Chipotle, and MacBook Pros: They've become popular with younger, tech-savvier, and more highly educated individuals.