Pacific Northwest Turns Up the Heat

The Pacific Northwest stands out as the top performing region with its two largest cities, Seattle and Portland, already boasting impressive quarterly gains. The western region, with below-average saturation of distressed properties combined with narrowing affordability and year-over-year price increases well over the 10% mark will present a challenge for homebuyers.

Nationally, quarter-over-quarter home price growth continues to outpace last year’s metrics, despite slowly creeping interest rates and two hikes by the Federal Reserve in just the last 6 months.

  • Seattle is now the fastest growing major metropolitan housing market in the country once again, with QoQ growth jumping .3% to 1.9% since just last month. Annual growth in Seattle is also setting the pace for the rest of the nation at 12.4%, twice as fast as the 6.2% national average from May 2016 to May 2017. Also in the top 5 markets is nearby Portland, where quarterly price growth is currently paced at 1.5%, while annual growth is also outpacing the national average at 11.5% over the last year.
  • Nationally, quarter-over-quarter home price growth is hovering at the 1.0% mark, while annual price change also remains steady at 6.3% with no change since April.
  • Regionally, the West continues to lead the rest of the country with quarterly home price growth at 1.2%, and annual growth in the region is also at 8.0%. Quarterly growth in other regions is still healthy for this time of year as the South, Midwest, and Northeast continue to outperform May 2016 QoQ metrics.
  • Jacksonville is boasting an impressive quarterly price increase of 1.9%, a jump of 0.2% from 1.7% since April. Distressed properties are a key contributing factor for such performant growth in the Jacksonville housing market – distressed saturation here is 15.8%, down from 26.2% in May 2016, a decrease of over 10% in a single year.
  • This month Dallas drops out of the top performing markets and joins the 15 slowest growing housing markets in the nation. Dallas was the nation’s top performing market just 5 months ago with home prices increasing at a rate of 1.5% per quarter, but current quarterly growth rates are almost half that at 0.8%. However, home price changes in Dallas are still a standout from the rest of the nation at 9.1% annual growth.

Data Effective Date: 4/24/2017

Graph 1. Quarterly and Annual Home Price Growth in the Pacific Northwest. Source: Clear Capital®

 National and Regional Markets
Market Qtr/Qtr% +/- Yr/Yr DistressedSaturation
National 0.9% 6.2% 11.9%
West 1.2% 8.0% 8.4%
Northeast 0.9% 4.5% 13.9%
South 0.8% 6.4% 13.0%
Midwest 0.6% 5.6% 13.5%

Chart 1. National and Regional distressed saturation and changes in home prices from last quarter and last year. Data through April 2017. Source: Clear Capital®

 Highest Performing Major Metro Markets
Rank Metropolitan Statistical Area Qtr/Qtr% +/- Yr/Yr Distressed
Saturation
1 Seattle, WA — Tacoma, WA — Bellevue, WA 1.9% 12.4% 7.8%
2 Jacksonville, FL 1.9% 11.4% 15.8%
3 Fresno, CA 1.8% 10.1% 11.1%
4 Portland, OR — Vancouver, WA — Beaverton, OR 1.5% 11.5% 7.7%
5 Chicago, IL — Naperville, IL — Joliet, IL 1.5% 9.8% 21.3%
6 San Diego, CA — Carlsbad, CA — San Marcos, CA 1.4% 7.8% 7.2%
7 Sacramento, CA — Arden, CA — Roseville, CA 1.4% 9.8% 9.0%
8 Orlando, FL 1.3% 10.5% 15.4%
9 San Antonio, TX 1.3% 11.1% 2.2%
10 Tucson, AZ 1.3% 8.3% 11.3%
11 Phoenix, AZ — Mesa, AZ — Scottsdale, AZ 1.3% 8.0% 10.5%
12 Minneapolis, MN — St. Paul, MN — Bloomington, WI 1.3% 8.1% 8.5%
13 Cleveland, OH — Elyria, OH — Mentor, OH 1.2% 8.8% 18.8%
14 Tampa, FL — St. Petersburg, FL — Clearwater, FL 1.2% 11.6% 16.8%
15 Cincinnati, OH — Middletown, OH 1.2% 8.2% 14.5%

Chart 2. Highest Performing Major Metro Markets through April 2017 Source: Clear Capital®

 Lowest Performing Major Metro Markets
Rank Metropolitan Statistical Area Qtr/Qtr% +/- Yr/Yr Distressed
Saturation
1 Memphis, TN -0.3% 6.7% 18.7%
2 Milwaukee, WI — Waukesha, WI — West Allis, WI -0.1% 4.8% 19.2%
3 Virginia Beach, VA — Norfolk, VA — Newport News, VA 0.1% 1.1% 18.5%
4 Rochester, NY 0.2% 3.7% 14.4%
5 Hartford, CT — West Hartford, CT — East Hartford, CT 0.3% 1.8% 20.9%
6 Baltimore, MD — Towson, MD 0.4% 3.7% 23.3%
7 Detroit, MI — Warren, MI — Livonia, MI 0.5% 7.4% 14.6%
8 Providence, RI — New Bedford, MA — Fall River, MA 0.6% 6.4% 13.7%
9 Pittsburgh, PA 0.6% 2.6% 12.6%
10 Houston, TX — Baytown, TX — Sugar Land, TX 0.7% 4.6% 1.4%
11 San Jose, CA — Sunnyvale, CA — Santa Clara, CA 0.7% 3.0% 3.0%
12 Louisville, KY 0.7% 5.4% 9.8%
13 Philadelphia, PA — Camden, NJ — Wilmington, DE 0.8% 4.6% 19.9%
14 Dallas, TX — Fort Worth, TX — Arlington, TX 0.8% 9.1% 2.5%
15 St. Louis, MO 0.9% 5.5% 20.3%

Chart 3. Lowest Performing Major Metro Markets through April 2017 Source: Clear Capital®

About the Clear Capital® Home Data Index (HDI) Market Report
The Clear Capital HDI Market Report provides insights into market trends and other leading indices for the real estate market at the national and local levels. A critical difference in the value of the HDI Market Report is the capability of Clear Capital to provide more timely and granular reporting than nearly any other home price index provider.

Clear Capital® HDI Methodology

  • Generates the timeliest indices in patent pending rolling quarter intervals that compare the most recent four months to the previous three months. The rolling quarters have no fixed start date and can be used to generate indices as data flows in, significantly reducing the multi-month lag time experienced with other indices.
  • Includes both fair market and institutional (real estate owned) transactions, giving equal weight to all market transactions and identifying price tiers at a market specific level. By giving equal weight to all transactions, the HDI is truly representative of each unique market.
  • Results from an address-level cascade create an index with the most granular, statistically significant market area available.
  • Provides weighted repeat sales and price-per-square-foot index models that use multiple sale types, including single-family homes, multi-family homes, and condominiums.

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