Seattle’s home prices are rising faster than San Francisco’s, report says

In Seattle, we often compare our current housing market explosion to San Francisco. And it’s no surprise: Our tech sector has been growing for quite some time, and California routinely sends the most new residents here.

New research from Zillow shows that right now, the Seattle area’s housing prices are actually growing faster than those in the Bay Area. In the metropolitan area, which includes Everett, Bellevue, and Tacoma, Zillow calculates our median home value at $455,800. That’s up 12.4 percent from last year, topping their list of fastest-appreciating markets.

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s home prices are rising at about half that rate, at 6 percent.

That doesn’t mean that Seattle is about to outpace the Bay in bottom-line home prices anytime soon. With, according to Zillow, a median home values of $865,400, San Fran’s homes are worth about double what ours are.

But the last time San Francisco’s home prices were rising at this pace, Zillow tells us, when their home values rose from $746,500 to $801,300 between May 2015 and February 2016.

The last time their median home value was below our current home value was in July 2002, at $452,100. During these simpler times for the Seattle housing market, ours was $231,100.

Meanwhile, Zillow puts Seattle at the top of their list of fastest-appreciating rental markets too, with a 5.5 percent increase year over year and a median monthly rent of $2,189, by their calculations. They show San Francisco rent holding steady, with just a 0.4 percent decrease—but this doesn’t mean rents aren’t high. Their median rent, according to the report, is $3,376.

• September 2017 Market Report: U.S. Rent Growth on the Rise Again [Zillow]
• What states are bringing the most new Seattle-area residents? [CS]