Washington Business Summer 2018 | Washington Business | Page 33

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Home Prices
home prices
Skyrocketing housing prices in the Puget Sound metro area have
dominated news coverage and policy debates far outside Seattle city
limits, for good reason. But that shouldn’t obscure another reality. Good
housing values are still available in Washington, as the chart to the
right shows.
Given the wide variation in housing prices — “location, location,
location” is a maxim for a reason — creating a regional average would
be misleading. Instead, as a proxy, the estimates, prepared by the WRC,
draw on county-level home sales from the Real Estate Research Center
for the most populous county in each region.
As expected, the region with the greatest population growth and
highest incomes, King County, also has the highest home price, 90
percent higher than second-ranking Jefferson County. King is also
the only region to show housing prices more than doubling from 2000
to 2017.
Again, once King County is removed from the equation, other regions
cluster. Four regions — Chelan, Clark, Jefferson and Pierce — show home
prices in the low $300,000s. Spokane and Yakima, proxies for Eastern
Washington and North Central Washington, come in lower, with Yakima
showing both the slowest growth in value, 45.5 percent, but also the
lowest price, $185,431.
$314,505
Chelan
$161,683
$324,477
Clark
$170,859
2017
$332,087
Jefferson
2000
$177,387
King
$632,363
$293,317
$313,671
Pierce
$168,405
$225,631
Spokane
$129,428
$185,431
$127,435
Yakima
2017 olympic southwest north i-5 king north central eastern south central total
total nonfarm 181,672 240,673 858,674 1,401,333 86,890 284,557 245,037 3,298,836
mining, logging and construction 10,362 19,046 63,941 75,683 4,647 14,693 14,503 202,875
manufacturing 9,050 25,825 94,884 102,892 7,765 21,533 21,251 283,200
retail trade 22,747 28,247 107,733 152,233 11,523 32,195 28,492 383,170
professional and business services 12,980 24,116 80,597 228,183 4,863 27,374 28,796 406,909
education and health services 23,886 37,510 120,798 179,092 11,700 54,407 42,062 469,455
leisure and hospitality 20,807 23,555 83,534 141,392 10,552 25,447 24,389 329,676
other private services 21,080 39,983 139,229 339,975 12,845 49,025 33,607 635,744
government 60,760 42,391 167,958 181,883 22,995 59,883 51,937 587,807
% of total 5.51% 7.30% 26.03% 42.48% 2.63% 8.63% 7.43%
Farm Employment by Region
employment by industry
Using nonfarm employment data from the state Employment Security
Department, the WRC prepared regional profiles. (Employment
numbers typically exclude farm labor because they are drawn from
Unemployment Insurance records (UI). Highly seasonal agricultural
work has historically had numerous UI exemptions.) The table shows
the breakdown across the seven regions. Of the 3.3 million jobs in the
state, 42 percent are in King County, followed by 26 percent in the
North I-5 corridor.
For comparison, as shown in the pie chart, full and part-time farm
employment in 2016 totaled 81,116, with most of the jobs in South
Central and North Central Washington.
2016 Farm Employment Total 81,116
East
Southwest
N I-5
corridor
King
Olympia
8%
10%
15%
3%
37%
4%
South
Central
23%
North
Central
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