Market Update – January 2015

February Market Update – Seattle/King Co/Eastside

Seattle Rents – what’s happening?

Are you aware that Seattle tenants paid an estimated $8.7 billion in rent this year, which is up 8.6 percent from the $7.1 billion paid in 2014?

According to Seattle online real estate company Zillow Inc., the estimated 11,000 Seattle renters paid $71 extra per month, or $852 per year, in rent this year compared with 2013.

Nationally, Zillow (NASDAQ: Z) renters paid $441 billion in rent in 2014 compared with $420 billion last year, an increase of nearly 5 percent.

Seattle’s 8.6 percent annual rent increase trailed double-digit increases registered in cities like San Francisco (13.5 percent increase), Denver (10.8 percent) and Pittsburgh (10.6 percent).

And renters shouldn’t look for relief any time soon.

“Next year, we expect rents to rise even faster than home values, meaning that another increase in total rent paid similar to that seen this year isn’t out of the question. In fact, it’s probable,”said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries, in a statement.

~Ben Miller, PSBJ

Buying a Home Twice as Affordable as Renting

Keep renting? Buy a home? What’s more affordable?

The American Dream of owning a home just got more affordable, but that’s partly because the average American now spends nearly 30% of their income on rent.

U.S. home buyers making the nation’s median income and purchasing the typical U.S. home spend around 15% of their income on their monthly house payment, excluding insurance and taxes, down from the historical norm of 22% during the pre-bubble period from 1985 to 1999, according to data released in December by housing website Zillow. On average, U.S. renters spent nearly 30% of their monthly income on rent in the third quarter of 2014, up from 25% historically. “What keeps me up at night is the fact that it still remains so difficult for so many potential buyers to make those particular stars align [being able to afford to own a home] largely because renting is so unaffordable these days,” says Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries.

This is supported by earlier studies on the subject. Renting has become significantly less affordable in recent years, according to a report released last year by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. According to that report, 50% of U.S. renters spent more than 30% of their gross income on rent (the traditional measure of affordability) in 2010, up a record 12 percentage points from the 38% of households facing such a burden a decade prior. And many of those households, about 27% of renters, spent more than half of their salary on rent, up from just 19% of renters who did so a decade ago. Landlords are hiking rents as salaries—particularly for younger Americans—remain stagnant, it found.

Nationwide, rents rose 6.1% year-over-year in November, according to separate data released by Trulia on Tuesday. Rents increased most dramatically in Denver—where the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment hovers at $1,550— a 14.2% year-over-year bump. They rose 12.2% in San Francisco ($3,600 for a two-bedroom apartment) and increased 11.9% in Oakland ($2,450 for a two-bedroom apartment). The median price of a new house sold in the U.S. hovers at $208,300, up 5% on the year in October, according to data released last month by the National Association of Realtors. Jed Kolko, chief economist at real estate website Trulia, calls this the “millennial mismatch—they can afford markets where they don’t live, but they can’t afford many of the markets where they do live.”

Millennials tend to live in areas where jobs are more plentiful, but where home ownership is less affordable. In metros with a higher population of millennial residents, homeownership tends to be less affordable for younger Americans, says Kolko. In Austin, Honolulu, New York and San Diego, 20- to 34-year-olds account for at least 23.5% of the population, putting those metros in the top 10 metro areas with millennial residents. Fewer than 30% of homes for sale in those markets are within reach of the typical millennial household. There are cheaper markets, like Oklahoma City and Baton Rouge, that have a high share of millennials, Kolko says, “but they’re the exception.”

Homeownership rates in the U.S. have steadily declined in recent years in part because millennials have delayed buying homes. Still, Humphries says it’s likely that millennials will overtake Generation X as the biggest group of U.S. home buyers, a transition aided by widespread home affordability. Population numbers may also explain the jump in buyers. There are 89 million millennials (also known as Generation Y, born roughly between 1981 and 1996) and 75 million boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) in the U.S., compared with just 49 million Gen Xers. “The allure of fixed housing payments and building wealth through home equity will draw more buyers out of rentals and into homeownership,” he says.

                                                                                                               Quentin Fottrell