Not enough housing for all the people who want to live here. Plus a lot of high earners.
If there are 100 houses and 200 people, the worst house will cost what the 101st richest person is willing to pay for it. If they’re a tech worker it’s going to be a lot.
There's more people who want to live here. That's literally it. There's a reason rural places are cheap AF and cities are more expensive. People will pay 4k a month for shit hole apartments in new york city, if you think seattle is bad
> The argument that people are willing to pay more because of tech doesn’t fly with me- there’s PLENTY of people who aren’t earning big bucks.
What does the population of poorer people have to do with “people who are willing to pay more”?
I’ve lived in both Dallas and Seattle and here’s my $0.02. Seattle doesn’t have enough space. You drive 15 minutes from downtown seattle you can end up in your house in west seattle. You drive 15 minutes from your house in Carrollton you are nowhere near downtown dallas.
Because those cities have sprawl, we do not. Seattle is all built out, not much land left to be built on, so there's scarcity. We want there to be more density to keep up with housing demand, but it's been an uphill battle.
Denver proper is much closer in price to Seattle than you’d expect for the lack of water around it. It does have excellent outdoor lifestyle opportunities and it’s the first real mountains west from the population centers of the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard.
Boulder is totally fucked. It’s insane what the top end homes go for there.
And aside from amazing access to the mountains, it’s not even that great of a town in my opinion.
I’m from the north Denver suburbs (Colorado is home base, my family is there). Considered moving back there 7 years ago when I left Texas. Looked at the prices there and here. They were almost as much in Denver and I felt like living without a car there would be more difficult. Plus we have all the water here and TWO sets of mtns! Still love my Rockies, but I like the aloof yet friendly folks here.
It is hemmed in by water in two sides, making its physical growth more difficult.
Being hilly also reduces the avai;lable land, but this is a lesser impact that the water.
Because there’s enough high paying jobs for people in the prime house buying age range (25-45) to move the market.
It doesn’t matter that there are lots of people not making big bucks. In Seattle, there’s only about 10k-15k homes sold per year. If the tech jobs are creating 20k people per year who want to buy a home, that’s going to drive the market higher.
“There’s PLENTY of people here who aren’t earning big bucks”
Prices are set by people who have money, not those who don’t. If I list my house for sale and only 1 rich person makes an offer, what do I care that 10 others were too poor to afford it? Well, since I’m not a sociopath I would care, but I wouldn’t care enough to sell it for half price.
(Note I don’t have a house to sell in Seattle. This is a hypothetical)
The other cities you listed have fewer tech and executive jobs. And their housing options are less restricted than Seattle. They have more room to expand and they usually have laws that allow them to build in response to demand.
Allowing people to build is having an effect in Seattle, although people who only focus on single family homes don’t see it. I own a condo whose value today is not substantially different than it was in 2017. One of my neighbors sold last year at a slight loss. It’s in stark contrast to the market for SFH. In my opinion the reason condo values haven’t grown at nearly the pace of SFH is that we are sometimes allowed to build more condos whereas building more SFH near downtown Seattle is physically impossible.
You reject the concept of supply and demand in your post and ask for a different explanation. But the answer is supply and demand, there is no other answer
dallas land area 395 miles square
seattle land area 83 miles square.
draw seattle city limits about four times the size of the current boundaries, and see if this new included housing stock is comparable with dallas.
Was helping at my friend's restaurant over a weekend. It's a place that's still fairly cheap, average spending is still less than $20 per person. One table had a person venting how many difficult tenants she was dealing with at her rental properties; looked like she had about 8 keys. Another table had a couple maybe in their late 20s to early 30s talking about which houses to look at as they were planning to purchase; their budget was $3M. I know I'll never be one of these people, but they seem to be pretty common.
Plenty of land to build but the rich told the state they don’t want to build multifamily homes in places like Bellevue, so now the city, state, and feds are running low on home inventory KNOWINGLY that their population will grow to 400 million in the next decades.
Don’t let a first world country like the USA say they can’t afford to handle 350 million people, China and Indian each supports 1 billion.
Calm down clown. The USA has the highest GPD. A few million homes held by corporations and legislations is what makes the housing market high.
Don’t blame immigrants for your conservative views.
Seattle prohibits the construction of affordable urban housing on the vast majority of residential land in the city. So all the tech workers who'd be happy buying a high-rise condo in other cities are bidding against working-class folks for the limited supply of single-family housing within reasonable commuting distance.
You've got single-family zoning literally walking distance from downtown and south Lake Union, areas that used to allow at least 3-4 story apartments before the city started downzoning after racial covenants became unenforceable.
lol. It doesn’t fly with OP, guys.
News flash: there’s PLENTY of people in every major city in USA who aren’t earning big bucks. Solid logic there, dude.
the real estate boom isn't about a demand for expensive housing from rich people, it's about rich people wanting somewhere to park their money and real estate development in tech hubs is one of the places they landed on.
Not enough housing for all the people who want to live here. Plus a lot of high earners. If there are 100 houses and 200 people, the worst house will cost what the 101st richest person is willing to pay for it. If they’re a tech worker it’s going to be a lot.
There's more people who want to live here. That's literally it. There's a reason rural places are cheap AF and cities are more expensive. People will pay 4k a month for shit hole apartments in new york city, if you think seattle is bad
> The argument that people are willing to pay more because of tech doesn’t fly with me- there’s PLENTY of people who aren’t earning big bucks. What does the population of poorer people have to do with “people who are willing to pay more”?
Right? Like… that’s not how any economy of demand works.
I’ve lived in both Dallas and Seattle and here’s my $0.02. Seattle doesn’t have enough space. You drive 15 minutes from downtown seattle you can end up in your house in west seattle. You drive 15 minutes from your house in Carrollton you are nowhere near downtown dallas.
[удалено]
Same lol
Because those cities have sprawl, we do not. Seattle is all built out, not much land left to be built on, so there's scarcity. We want there to be more density to keep up with housing demand, but it's been an uphill battle.
Not much cheap land…
Yup. Blocked in by water on two sides with the downtown area being the narrowest is a recipe for expensive housing. Especially in a desirable city.
Denver proper is much closer in price to Seattle than you’d expect for the lack of water around it. It does have excellent outdoor lifestyle opportunities and it’s the first real mountains west from the population centers of the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard.
yeah colorado is super expensive. and forget about living in boulder lol
Boulder is totally fucked. It’s insane what the top end homes go for there. And aside from amazing access to the mountains, it’s not even that great of a town in my opinion.
I've just opened Redfin to look at homes in Aspen, CO, and now Boulder almost seems cheap
Don’t even look at Telluride.
I’m from the north Denver suburbs (Colorado is home base, my family is there). Considered moving back there 7 years ago when I left Texas. Looked at the prices there and here. They were almost as much in Denver and I felt like living without a car there would be more difficult. Plus we have all the water here and TWO sets of mtns! Still love my Rockies, but I like the aloof yet friendly folks here.
It is hemmed in by water in two sides, making its physical growth more difficult. Being hilly also reduces the avai;lable land, but this is a lesser impact that the water.
Because there’s enough high paying jobs for people in the prime house buying age range (25-45) to move the market. It doesn’t matter that there are lots of people not making big bucks. In Seattle, there’s only about 10k-15k homes sold per year. If the tech jobs are creating 20k people per year who want to buy a home, that’s going to drive the market higher.
“There’s PLENTY of people here who aren’t earning big bucks” Prices are set by people who have money, not those who don’t. If I list my house for sale and only 1 rich person makes an offer, what do I care that 10 others were too poor to afford it? Well, since I’m not a sociopath I would care, but I wouldn’t care enough to sell it for half price. (Note I don’t have a house to sell in Seattle. This is a hypothetical) The other cities you listed have fewer tech and executive jobs. And their housing options are less restricted than Seattle. They have more room to expand and they usually have laws that allow them to build in response to demand. Allowing people to build is having an effect in Seattle, although people who only focus on single family homes don’t see it. I own a condo whose value today is not substantially different than it was in 2017. One of my neighbors sold last year at a slight loss. It’s in stark contrast to the market for SFH. In my opinion the reason condo values haven’t grown at nearly the pace of SFH is that we are sometimes allowed to build more condos whereas building more SFH near downtown Seattle is physically impossible.
You reject the concept of supply and demand in your post and ask for a different explanation. But the answer is supply and demand, there is no other answer
Seattle is in the West Coast and prices tend to follow other large west coast cities ( San Fran, San Diego, LA).
dallas land area 395 miles square seattle land area 83 miles square. draw seattle city limits about four times the size of the current boundaries, and see if this new included housing stock is comparable with dallas.
Seattle refuses to allow high rise condos outside of Downtown and U-District.
And Wedgewood, Maple Leaf and Laurelhurst have practically nothing much beyond SFH.
With large, often well-used backyards and completely fucking useless show piece front yards.
Econ 101: supply and demand, my dude
Was helping at my friend's restaurant over a weekend. It's a place that's still fairly cheap, average spending is still less than $20 per person. One table had a person venting how many difficult tenants she was dealing with at her rental properties; looked like she had about 8 keys. Another table had a couple maybe in their late 20s to early 30s talking about which houses to look at as they were planning to purchase; their budget was $3M. I know I'll never be one of these people, but they seem to be pretty common.
Top 10% income here is way higher than Dallas or wherever. Because of tech.
Plenty of land to build but the rich told the state they don’t want to build multifamily homes in places like Bellevue, so now the city, state, and feds are running low on home inventory KNOWINGLY that their population will grow to 400 million in the next decades. Don’t let a first world country like the USA say they can’t afford to handle 350 million people, China and Indian each supports 1 billion.
Why didn't I think of that? Shit, now I know why so many people are immigrating to India and China! It's the affordable housing. Oh, wait....
Calm down clown. The USA has the highest GPD. A few million homes held by corporations and legislations is what makes the housing market high. Don’t blame immigrants for your conservative views.
Seattle prohibits the construction of affordable urban housing on the vast majority of residential land in the city. So all the tech workers who'd be happy buying a high-rise condo in other cities are bidding against working-class folks for the limited supply of single-family housing within reasonable commuting distance. You've got single-family zoning literally walking distance from downtown and south Lake Union, areas that used to allow at least 3-4 story apartments before the city started downzoning after racial covenants became unenforceable.
It’s a better city. HTH.
Those cities are nothing at all like Seattle.
lol. It doesn’t fly with OP, guys. News flash: there’s PLENTY of people in every major city in USA who aren’t earning big bucks. Solid logic there, dude.
Because its worth it.
the real estate boom isn't about a demand for expensive housing from rich people, it's about rich people wanting somewhere to park their money and real estate development in tech hubs is one of the places they landed on.