It
takes only a quick glance approaching the Northwest’s largest city to recognize
something big is happening.
Anyone
who may have been away from Seattle for a few months—or even weeks—may find it
disorienting that a new building is rising from what was a vacant lot, which only
a short time before had been another older building.
Traffic
patterns may have changed overnight as construction activity forces detours
onto unfamiliar streets. If you’re driving you may already regret not parking
far out of Seattle’s downtown and taking the commuter train or bus.
Such
is the pace of new development as the Seattle skyline is transformed by the
largest number of construction cranes, 58, of any American city according to a recent
report, more than those in New York and San Francisco combined and 18 more than
second place Los Angeles.
The
online retail behemoth Amazon continues to expand in the north of the historic
downtown core near Lake Union, where Facebook and other tech companies also
occupy hundreds of thousands of feet of new office space.
Among the leading developers, appropriately enough, is Microsoft co-founder
Paul Allen’s Vulcan Real Estate, which many years ago staked out land in the Lake
Union area.
With
two new buildings under construction by Vulcan and an existing 335,000 square
foot office Facebook could have as many as 4,000 employees in the South Lake
Union area. Amazon, which also leases Vulcan
buildings for its thousands of area workers.
Moreover,
Vulcan is also set to begin construction on over 600,000 feet of new offices
for Google in the same area of the city.
Reflecting
the explosive growth of commercial space and jobs in the area, the median price
of a single family home reached $615,000 in November of 2016, and $759,000 in
the eastern suburban area across Lake Washington.
The
boom in housing prices and the changing character of Seattle have resulted in
another trend—long-time Washington’s or natives being displaced as a percentage
of the population by newcomers.
The
Seattle Times recently reported that US Census data shows that native-born
Washington residents declined as a percentage of the King County
population, which includes Seattle.
Native
residents were down 2%, or by 17,000, with 850,000 or 40% now comprising the
total county population.
Some
residents are escaping to farther-out suburbs, or to cities such as Tacoma,
where median home prices are half of those in Seattle. But others are moving to
other states where cost of living is much lower, according to reports by the
Times.
The
Seattle housing boom is also mirrored elsewhere in the Northwest.
The
latest housing appreciation statistics from the Federal Housing Finance
Administration show that seven of the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas
(MSAs) are in Washington and Oregon.
Seattle-Bellevue-Everett
MSA leads the way through the third quarter of 2016 with single family home
prices up 12.23%, placing it at No. 2, behind Port St. Lucie, FL.
Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro
ranked No. 5, up 11.50%, followed by Bend-Redmond, No. 7 at 10.99%;
Tacoma-Lakewood, No. 8, up 10.89%; Bremerton-Silverdale, WA, No 12, up 10.66%;
Bellingham, No. 17 at 10.04%; and Salem, No. 19 at 9.51%.
For
the five-year period Bend-Redmond topped all 20 in the FHFA rankings with a
79.60% increase.
