How do average income earners afford homes in Seattle? (houses, neighborhoods)

[wsugrad03]

Originally Posted by Jennibc

It will be interesting to see what happens here over the next two years. Does anyone know how Zillow comes up with its values? They have our house valued at 460K, I would be shocked if I could get that much for it. That's after it supposedly lost 14k in value last month.

It's proprietary, but it probably involves several layers of base calculations to generate statistical values per square foot for your zip code. Then those values are refined by the recorded features of the home and the average values of the homes in the neighborhood. The prices are also affected by the comps in the neighborhood. When there's a short sale on your block, it'll drag the prices down to reflect that.

It's just a rough estimate. These days, you'll probably only sell you home at the low zestamate value.

[Gruvis]

Bumping this thread because I think it is even more relevant in 2014. Have cities like Kent, Auburn, and Lynnwood seen a huge population increase because of high home prices in Seattle driving people away?

[mkarch]

Originally Posted by Gruvis

Bumping this thread because I think it is even more relevant in 2014. Have cities like Kent, Auburn, and Lynnwood seen a huge population increase because of high home prices in Seattle driving people away?

I remember back in the 2005-2007 period more people were giving up on Seattle and moving to those places because housing was cheaper - but a lot of those people also left when the housing market collapsed. Kent in particular was a sea of vacant foreclosures for quite a while. Both Kent and Auburn have had a lot of new house construction in the last 2 years, but total # of units added is less than in Seattle. Seattle also had a record boom in apartment construction over the past few years, whereas that hasn't happened to anywhere near the same degree in those areas.

[krieger00]

I was trying to buy a house a few years back but did not want to drive from Tacoma to Seattle 5 days a week . On top of spending 3 hours in traffic driving in a car no thanks.

[krieger00]

Originally Posted by Gruvis

Bumping this thread because I think it is even more relevant in 2014. Have cities like Kent, Auburn, and Lynnwood seen a huge population increase because of high home prices in Seattle driving people away?

Soon people will have to live in Tacoma or Olympia and work in Seattle. Even rent in Kent is 750 For a one if you do not mind getting raped or you could pay 800 to 1 k for a one bedrone and no rape. That is not including utilities so add a few hundred bucks a month to that.

BTW I am for people landlords making money and all but soon no one will live in Seattle then what will happen .

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by krieger00

Soon people will have to live in Tacoma or Olympia and work in Seattle. Even rent in Kent is 750 For a one if you do not mind getting raped or you could pay 800 to 1 k for a one bedrone and no rape. That is not including utilities so add a few hundred bucks a month to that.

BTW I am for people landlords making money and all but soon no one will live in Seattle then what will happen .

While waiting for the bus to Sammamish from Seattle every afternoon I see buses loaded up with people headed for Gig Harbor, Tacoma, and Lakewood/Olympia. I have employees in the $60,000 pay range living in Lake Tapps and Bonney Lake that take the train to work. Other employees here in the $70-80k range live on Bainbridge Island or Bremerton and take the ferry to work. Despite the high prices in Seattle there is no great surplus of homes for rent or sale, there are plenty of people moving here all the time that can afford it. They are just not making "average" incomes.

[jm31828]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

While waiting for the bus to Sammamish from Seattle every afternoon I see buses loaded up with people headed for Gig Harbor, Tacoma, and Lakewood/Olympia. I have employees in the $60,000 pay range living in Lake Tapps and Bonney Lake that take the train to work. Other employees here in the $70-80k range live on Bainbridge Island or Bremerton and take the ferry to work. Despite the high prices in Seattle there is no great surplus of homes for rent or sale, there are plenty of people moving here all the time that can afford it. They are just not making "average" incomes.

That is a great point. There is a sea of new houses going up in my area in north Bothell as well as Mill Creek as well, those people mostly all work down in Seattle or the east side. Those homes are less than you'd find in Seattle, quite a bit more affordable. And until a month ago I lived in Lynnwood- where one can buy a reasonable home in the $200's or a really nice new one in the $300's, so that salary- especially in a dual income household is totally doable. And yes, most of them are driving down to Seattle to work every day.

So I do think those that are living in Seattle proper in those expensive homes are the select group who earns enough to afford it- or who lived there long enough that they bought before prices went high. Otherwise the average wage earners are either renting apartments in Seattle or else buying cheaper homes in these outer areas mentioned.

[Blondebaerde]

Originally Posted by jm31828

That is a great point. There is a sea of new houses going up in my area in north Bothell as well as Mill Creek as well, those people mostly all work down in Seattle or the east side. Those homes are less than you'd find in Seattle, quite a bit more affordable.

So I do think those that are living in Seattle proper in those expensive homes are the select group who earns enough to afford it- or who lived there long enough that they bought before prices went high. Otherwise the average wage earners are either renting apartments in Seattle or else buying cheaper homes in these outer areas mentioned.

Agreed.

Not surprised they've amped up the building again in Mill Creek area. I watched it boom big after the brief recession of 2001, too. That crashed like the Hindenburg in 2008, I litterally watched them STOP building a couple complexes that then fell into disuse for a couple years after. Today, I'm assuming all that open land east of 35th and along Hwy 96 all the way out to the dump (Cathcart Road) and eventually Hwy 9 is open season.

Well, in terms of living where I could at (somewhat) modest income, that's what I did, though the acceleration curve of housing prices is different now vs. back then (1999). I bought into one of those kinds of complexes, to start, in Mill Creek actually. No complaints: I was pleased to call it home for a long time. Well-enough built, though my no means deluxe. And commuting to Eastside was quite unpleasant, but that's just how it is.

That bought me sufficient time to gather resources and improve my income to live somewhere I truly wanted to be today. Not easy, and of course housing prices were weirdly fluctuating throughout, as-well. The mini-trough of 2011 appears after all to have been best time to buy, lately, though we'll see if that's really true ten years or so down the road with more data.

Built in 1997, drove through it nostalgically the other day (the townhome complex in Mill Creek). Looking a bit worse for wear these days. I figure condos have a finite lifespan around here due to settling and 1,001 other factors. I would call very few "investments" per se, though a real estate professional could probably comment more-authoritatively on that.

The above is one way to live in places that are "affordable," and then later buy into the more-interesting parts of Seattle and Eastside. That word being irritating to me, since "affordable" to a person on $60K for a family of four, or minimum wage working several jobs, has nothing whatsoever to do with a single person making +$150K.

[BATCAT]

Originally Posted by bhouston77386

$57,849 is the average median household income in Seattle. $585,324 is the average price for a detached single family home.

How on earth can the average person or family afford a mortgage of $585,325, not including insurance and all the other taxes?

We don't. We rent.

My wife and I are full-time-working DINKs with decent incomes, but owning a home anywhere close-in is basically impossible right now.

Maaaybe a modest condo, but I think we'd probably have to move to Beacon Hill or something.

[eskercurve]

I honestly think the next areas to be gentrified are south Seattle. It's happening right now in the Mt. Baker and Atlantic neighborhoods around I-90 (east of where the nice views are). It will likely extend south and start pushing more of the lower-income immigrants out.

That would be a shame, but if nobody's building townhomes or higher density living then the only option is to buy homes south of I-90, which people have snobbishly ignored as "ghetto" (I always LMFAO at that ridiculous tag, as if any white or asian person from a middle class background knew what a ghetto was).

Just the other day I saw a plethora of relatively nice homes in relatively nice neighborhoods (except they were SOUTH OF I-90 ) for under $250k. A nominal family of dual income earners with two kids and two parents making around 100k a year could easily afford that.

So, I chafe when people whine and complain that "Oh boo hoo there's no good homes in Seattle." Bull. Utter and stupid bull. Learn to live with people who aren't your ethno-economic view of "acceptable". No you don't have to hang with the gang bangers, no you don't have to discuss the finer points of drug haggling with the local hustlers, no you don't have to make friends with hookers. All that is wayyyyyy overblown. There's maybe 1-2 areas I'd avoid. At night. Alone. The rest of the time, it's fine.