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Sunday, February 12, 2006

Housing Vs. Wages In Snohomish County

Here's an article that goes into some detail on the subject of how much faster than wages housing prices have been rising, specifically in Snohomish County.

The rapid rate of increase the last two years has raised eyebrows in the industry, Hokanson said. "Any time we get into double digits, we're a little bit concerned."

The housing price increases have started to outpace the earning power of Snohomish County residents. The average Snohomish County household's income, according to federal statistics, grew by only 1.8 percent in 2004, the most recent year for which figures were available.

Between 2000 and 2004, average household income grew by 11.7 percent, to about $39,200 from $35,100. But over the same period, median housing prices jumped 28.3 percent, meaning the average family lost ground.
Nothing really new in there that I haven't been saying already, but since it's on-topic, it's always worth mentioning.

(Bryan Corliss, Everett Herald, 02.05.2006)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would recommend you sell your house soon before market comes down to a more realistic price range. I also would recommend if your job is in any way attached to the housing sector, IE, agents, brokers, builders, building materials suppliers,.. start looking for another job while their are other jobs. If everybody runs for the dorr at once, someone's going to get burned. We should also mention that $1 Trillion worth of adjustable rate mortgages are set to RESET 2006-2007. So if you bought a house with an ARM, you can either refi and hope you can afford the going rates 6.23% or try to sell. Well I'de sell now before they all reset in the same time frame, putting more pressure on the market due to huge supply and demand shrinking.