Realtor.com just released its list of America’s Top ‘Boom Towns’ and wouldn't you know it Seattle is right there near the top.
What makes a good boom town? Strong job growth, construction, and housing starts. Yep, Seattle certainly checks all those boxes right now. So here's what they had to say about our city, which checked in at No. 6 overall:
The 98121 zip code is home to the largest proportion of residents in downtown Seattle, as well as the largest retail area. Ten percent of Seattle residents now live downtown, representing a 12 percent growth in population since 2010. New residential developments like the 707-unit Insignia Towers and the area’s wide variety of restaurants, bars and cultural offerings, have made Belltown a major draw in recent years. This is especially true for employees of the area’s major employees like Amazon, Microsoft, and Starbucks, who are looking for close proximity to work.
ZIP code 98121 is expected to see households grow by 11.9 percent over the next five years. King County is expected to see more than 13,000 new housing starts and 21,000 new jobs formed in 2016, that's 3.1 times more new homes and 2.3 times more jobs than the average of the top 100 counties in the country, respectively.
That zip code in question is the one that encompasses Belltown, Denny Triangle, and a small piece of Downtown.
Meanwhile, Redfin checked in with some updated national housing numbers and backed up the idea that Seattle is booming with some housing market specifics.
Denver and Seattle were the fastest markets, with half of all homes pending sale in just 7 and 8 days, respectively. Median days on market in Denver was the same as in March of 2015, but 6 days faster in Seattle. Portland was the next fastest market with 11 median days on market.
Seattle, (up 2.5 percentage points to 101.6%), Tacoma, WA (up 2.1 percentage points to 98.2%), and Portland (up 2 percentage points to 100.1%) had the largest annual increases in the average sale-to-asking percentage, while San Francisco retained the highest figure with the average home selling for 106.9% of the asking price.
In their matrix of homes sales vs. overall inventory, Seattle (and Tacoma) stands out on it's own when it comes to low inventory.