King County Growth Report
The NWReporter, a publication of the Northwest MLS, reported on findings from the 2006 King County Growth Report. Among the information pertaining to the economy and real estate market include:
Strained housing affordability and traffic congestion seem to be the inevitable consequences of the desirability of King County as a place to live and do business, the researchers suggest.
King County’s number of jobs has nearly returned to pre-recession numbers after 70,000 jobs were lost from 2001-2004. That finding is among details in the comprehensive report issued late last year by King County Executive Ron Sims.
I found this statistic interesting as I would have thought new in-city construction would account for a smaller percentage. Likely, this is due to the number of condo and townhome developments:
Builders in Seattle constructed 28 percent of the county’s new housing units in 2005, while the remaining cities permitted more than 53 percent of the new units. Less than 4 percent of new construction occurred in rural and resource areas.
It’s no secret that the Seattle market will remain buoyant in the near future with positive economic and job growth forecasted. Though the challenge will be providing homeownership opportunities to first-time buyers as the region’s housing affordability index continues on a downward trend (per WSU’s Washington Center for Real Estate Research). And, many of the major downtown Seattle condo projects expected to begin pre-sale this year may be out of reach for many buyers.
