RSIR Report Outlines What to Expect in 2020 Real Estate
As the fastest-growing large city in America, Seattle’s booming and diversified economy has spurred unprecedented development and population growth with a clear urbanization trend. As 2020 looms on the horizon, Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty look at a key question: Will the City of Seattle witness the same trajectory over the next ten years?
Below we’ve compiled top insights from RSIR’s look ahead, which studies some of the leading indicators affecting the current investment cycle in the region, draws paralleled to Seattle’s harbinger markets on the West Coast like Vancouver, B.C. and San Francisco, California, and offers some perspective of how the housing trends may unfold ahead.
Market Fundamentals
Seattle means business with more than 1.2 million employed in King County, and the economic region boasts a 3.4 percent unemployment rate with job growth trending at 2.8 percent year-over-year. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) OF THE Seattle metro area is $356 billion—three-and-a-half times greater than the City of Vancouver. Seattle posts a local GDP per capita at $86,889—the fourth-highest among the 40 largest metro areas in the U.S.
The five strongest economies in the U.S. are all tech-fueled (in order from first to fifth: San Jose, California; San Francisco, California; Austin, Texas; Seattle, Washington; and Denver, Colorado). As the Information Technology (IT) center of the Pacific Northwest, sometimes referred to as the “Silicon Forest,” Seattle and the Eastside dominate job growth in the region. This is helping to draw 800 or more new residents to the metro area per week.
New Condominiums
Demand is expected to increase substantially for new presale condominiums, as well as existing resale properties, on account that tends of thousands of well-qualified tech millennial workers are already living in pricey apartments downtown, and many will migrate to ownership. From a macro perspective, Seattle has a long runway to catch up to more mature, global cities such as San Francisco and Vancouver.
Transportation
In response to regional highway congestion increasing 95 percent between 2010 and 2015, Sound Transit 3 was approved by voters in 2016. The plan will add 62 miles of light rail to serve 37 additional stops for the regional system—a 116-mile transit network that will originate from an urban hub at King Street Station in downtown Seattle. This is a game changer for the region, as the residential and job centers of the Eastside will finally be connected to downtown Seattle by 2024, with the full plan implemented by 2040. Seattle leads the nation in metro ridership adoption, and for good reason—it was overdue.
For more, read the full 2020 Outlook here.