Nearly One In Three Seattle Homes Sells For Over $1M: Report

SEATTLE — Nearly one in three Seattle homes now sells for over $1 million dollars, according to a recent study.

That study, performed by real estate advisor Point 2, looked at "luxury home" sales — in this case defined as homes worth more than $1 million — in 30 large, 30 mid-sized, and 30 small cities, to rank those cities by their share of luxury housing. Their analysis found that, in Seattle, 28.1 percent of homes for sale were priced at over $1 million dollars.

That makes Seattle the seventh-priciest market in the big cities category, just behind San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, Boston, and New York. Seattle's median home price was found to be $857,000.

That's a far cry from where the city was just a decade ago, but still significantly cheaper than Seattle's West Coast tech rival San Francisco. San Fran's median home price was found to be $1,510,000, and 64 percent of its homes were sold for more than $1 million.

The impact Seattle's booming house market has had on the whole Puget Sound region can be seen in some of Point2's other rankings. Tacoma also placed seventh in their mid-sized city ranking, with 8 percent of homes selling for more than a million. Continuing the trend, Burien placed seventh in the small U.S. cities listing with 7.3 percent.

The fact that house prices continued to trend upwards in Puget Sound probably doesn't surprise those who have been closely eying the housing market. A recent analysis by the Seattle Times' Gene Balk showed that Seattle housing was about 115 percent more expensive than the average housing market. Rents and mortgages were also more than 100 percent more expensive than the national average, the Times reported.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Point2's findings showed that the pandemic had apparently very little impact on luxury home sales across the country. In fact, the study found the number of homes sold for over $1 million nationwide rose by 81 percent between February 2020 and February 2021.

That's good news for homeowners, but could also be read as a troubling sign of growing wealth inequality. As property owners continue to see their home values go up, about 4.9 million American renters say they have no confidence in their ability to pay rent next month. Among those are thousands of Washingtonians who are at risk of being evicted later this year when the state's eviction moratorium expires. According to a recent Census study, of the 220,059 Washington renters who are not current on their rental payments, 53,724 said they felt they were likely to be evicted in two months' time. Another 61,624 said eviction was somewhat likely.

One in ten Washington renters contacted by the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey said they had no confidence in their ability to pay their next month's rent.

Related: Thousands In WA Fear Eviction As Moratorium's End Draws Near