New figures confirm Seattle's housing affordability woes
The pattern is very strong: In Seattle you have affluent, largely single people chasing a small supply of urban housing. The result is small household size, an exodus of families to the suburbs, and very high housing prices in the city.
The census long form, which one in seven Americans used to fill out, is gone. In its place, the American Community Survey (ACS) is the source of much of the information about people and places. The 2006 ACS was recently released, so here are some highlights, focusing on the city of Seattle, the rest of the metropolitan region, and the nation. As you will see, Seattle really is an unusual city, and we really do have a housing affordability crisis.
Seattle's population, at 562,000, is substantial but is now only 16 percent of the metropolitan population of 3.5 million. Even suburban King has more than twice as many folks as Seattle. How can this be, one may ask, with the vast amount of redevelopment and construction? The answer is simple. Seattle's average household size is small, 2.17, as many families move to the slightly more affordable suburbs, or opt for houses instead of apartments, and affluent couples and singles outbid middle-class families for those houses and condos.
To learn more about our small household size, let's look at kinds of households, in Seattle versus suburbia. Seattle is off the chart! Here, like the U.S. as a whole, two-thirds of suburban households are families, 25 percent to 30 percent are singles, and 5 percent to 7 percent are unmarried partners or roommates. But in the city of Seattle, an astounding 44 percent of households are single persons. (Along with San Francisco, Seattle's singles percentage is the highest in the nation for a major city.) A very high 12 percent are unmarried partners (often de-facto families), only a little behind San Francisco. Only one-third of households are traditional husband-wife families.
Given the low household size and high share of singles, it is no surprise that Seattle has an extraordinarily low share of population under 18, only 15 percent, compared to 25 percent in the suburbs and in the nation. Conversely, it has a super-share (30 percent) of young adults 18-34, compared to 20 percent to 24 percent in the suburbs. And again, it is no surprise that Seattle's share of never-married persons (43 percent) is higher than the share of married persons (40 percent), similar to San Francisco's share. In our suburbs and the nation, the shares are 25 percent to 30 percent never-married and 50 percent to 55 percent married.
We often hear about high levels of educational attainment in greater Seattle, but this isn't true of Pierce, Kitsap, or Snohomish counties, where 23 percent to 27 percent of adults have a bachelor's degree or more, close to the U.S. rate of 27 percent. But high educational levels definitely describe King County (suburban King 40 percent, Seattle an out-of-sight 53 percent). A significant share of these well-educated folks are migrants from other states and countries. A remarkably low 37 percent of Seattleites are native to Washington: 44 percent are from other states and 19 percent are from abroad (half from Asia).
The last and perhaps most unusual statistic is about housing. See the tables below, with housing values and incomes for the Seattle area.
Households
| Median house price | Median household income | Ratio of house to income | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle | $447,800 | $58,300 | 7.7 |
| Suburban King County | $365,120 | $65,900 | 5.5 |
| Pierce County | $255,600 | $53,920 | 4.7 |
| Snohomish County | $320,900 | $60,000 | 5.3 |
| Kitsap County | $275,900 | $55,250 | 5.0 |
| U.S. | $185,200 | $48,450 | 3.8 |
Families
| Median house price | Median family income | Ratio of house to income | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle | $447,800 | $82,870 | 5.4 |
| Suburban King County | $365,120 | $80,065 | 4.6 |
| Pierce County | $255,600 | $63,225 | 4.0 |
| Snohomish County | $320,900 | $71,225 | 4.5 |
| Kitsap County | $275,900 | $67,225 | 4.1 |
| U.S. | $185,200 | $58,525 | 3.2 |
Conventional wisdom would predict that suburbs are richer and have higher housing values. But Seattle defies the pattern, having far higher median house values and household incomes than the rest of the metropolis. The reason is that the supply of owned units (and this includes all those condos) is lower than the demand from relatively affluent professionals who want to live in an appealing and vibrant city, even if many work in the suburbs.
But note that the rest of the metropolis also has home values and incomes well above the national averages. The bottom line: Housing in and around Seattle is much less affordable than in most of the nation.
I guess this qualifies as a housing affordability crisis. I'm sorry folks, but despite promises and rhetoric, this is not going to change. And it does help to explain why so many Seattle families have moved to south King County, to Pierce County, and beyond.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 5:54 a.m. inappropriate
Seattle--land of the very rich, very poor, and very old: Rhetoric notwithstanding, Seattle progressives have created a city unsuitable for the middle class. Only rich and poor are in effect welcome. And despite constant progressive claims of doing things 'for the children' neither are they effectively welcome.
I work at a union, blue collar job with about 80 co-workers. Many are baby boomers in their 40's & 50's who grew up in Seattle, but only one or two still live in Seattle. In effect these blue collar, middle class working guys have all been evicted by the purportedly progressive policies of Seattle.
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 9:08 a.m. inappropriate
I agree: Richard Morrill is exactly right. There is a housing affordability crisis in central Seattle. Which is why we need to invest heavily in high-capacity rapid transit, so people can live anywhere, and work anywhere.
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 10:07 a.m. inappropriate
Geographic diversification of business needed: The main problem that I see is that most businesses are chasing the prestige addresses in the Seattle-Bellevue metroplex, an area that is notoriously difficult to get into and out of due to simple geography. Puget Sound on the west, the Cascades on the east, and a big ol' lake plopped right in the middle. If more businesses would locate north or south of the lake, not around it, workers could afford to live nearer their jobs and congestion would ease. As far as Seattle is concerned, it's a lost cause at least for a generation. Unless you style yourself an urban hipster the place is really insufferable. Every day I follow cars across the Narrows Bridge, all the way to Seattle or Bellevue. We aren't stupid. We like (and can afford) where we live and we like where we work. We just wish the two were closer. Until businesses lose their fear of "Deliverance" country, the heinous-commute problem will endure because it's a rational choice given the options.
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 11:26 a.m. inappropriate
Shortage of specific housing types: Families want single family homes with yards. They are in short supply in Seattle. We are not building more of these, and zoning pressures and desires for mega homes continually decrease supply. The resulting demand pressure increases the housing prices for these homes.
What we are building is condos and townhomes without yards. Young 'singles' buy these and share the space with their significant others and roomates. Hence the demographic shift towards younger, childless people.
Please be careful when labeling this phenomenon as an "affordable housing crisis." The solution that suggests, at least to people like Charlie Royer and Seattle's Planning Commission, is to add more units by "unlocking the zoning lock on single family homes." That is not the solution, because the lack of sufficient zoning is not the problem.
There is no easy or cheap solution to more affordable housing. Telling people they can't convert affordable apartment complexes into condos isn't easy. It is also not easy to prohibit tear-downs of affordable single family homes. It is not easy to force owners in high-density urban village zones to build to maximum zoning capacity. It is not cheap to subsidize builders to create affordable housing. And it's not cheap to build an effective,speedy, and convenient regional rapid (bus or rail) transit system to spread the parcel pricing bonus of "location, location, location" across a wider geographic area.
These are the only real paths to affordable housing.
I hope this article and these data do not help perpetuate the myth of an "easy solution" to affordability via upzoning everything. If it does, we won't be any more affordable but we'll have gutted our neighborhoods and made Seattle into one big impervious surface. Families will be even more likely to flee.
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 11:36 a.m. inappropriate
Reaganomics, neoliberalism and the middle class: We have had 3 decades of economic policy that is anti-middle class. We have outsourced millions of good blue collar manufacturing jobs. We have subsidized corporate welfare and bailouts from SL bailout to Enron while failing to update and add basic civic infrastructure. We saddle college students with massive debt and then put a heavy mortgage on them for their first house. Etc. The economic policies from the 30's through the 70's largely built the middle class, since then we have been dismantling it at a rapid clip. You know what they say about cooking a frog....Read Robert Kuttner or Lou Dobbs who have written about this.
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 11:49 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Geographic diversification of business needed: I think dbreneman and I are buddies on this one. I'm fortunate that I get to live and work in Tacoma, mostly because I own and operate a business, Wallflower Photography, that draws people from all over the region to me. When I have to leave town for weddings, it's on the weekend when traffic isn't nearly as bad.
But I have plenty of friends who love Tacoma, Gig Harbor, etc. for both quality-of-living and low(er)-price reasons. Because there aren't enough good jobs in Tacoma (and if Russell leaves town, it'll get even worse), they have to drive north every day in one big global-warming caravan.
If more effort was made to bring jobs to Tacoma, and keep jobs in Tacoma, think of the problems that would be solved: traffic, pollution, and the subject of this article, housing affordability (at least for this generation, until Tacoma's prices go up like Seattle's already have). Just look at how much cheaper housing in Pierce County is vs. King! Don't assume that it's because the neighborhoods or the things-to-do suck.
I'm using Tacoma as the example because it's the next-biggest city and has the best infrastructure for growth, but doing the same for Everett, Puyallup, Auburn, Olympia, Bremerton, etc. would also help fix these problems.
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 1:16 p.m. inappropriate
What's realistic: We're in a desirable city. People with average incomes can probably manage any two of these: square footage, quality, or proximity (well, as long as the two aren't square footage and proximity).
A middle-income family can choose proximity. The kids might need to share a bedroom (gasp...in AMERICA?!). They might not get a formal dining room or a two-car garage (nooooo...my ears!), the carpet might be 10 or perhaps 20 years old, and the neighborhood might not be on SAF tours, but it can be done.
To me, the housing issue is sort of like gas prices. Sure, the poor are really hurting. But the middle class is simply finding that being extravagant isn't cheap anymore. Boo hoo.
I agree about transit. We need to seriously upgrade the system. This means more light rail "spines" with high capacity, as well as a continued increase in bus service (how about a boost within Seattle to go along with the recent suburban-focused expansion?).
Also, it would be nice to loosen some restrictions a bit to get more infill housing. Mother-in-laws and garage houses are important. Seattle's lengthy permitting process adds substantially to the cost. Our lack of denser zoned land means that the land that is zoned dense is expensive. We force new Downtown highrise residents to pay a big added fee, when they're often exactly the people helping us the most by living near work, etc. Seattle's reduction of parking requirements is a big help, as unused spaces can cost $40,000 each. (disclosure...I work for a general contractor)
I might disagree regarding dispersal of jobs. Concentration of jobs is what makes public transit efficient. We could agree if the north and south get concentrated centers that are large and few in number, such as the highrise districts Lynnwood, Sea-Tac, and Federal Way are planning. The key would be making these centers large enough that they can each merit bus lines radiating in all directions, and hopefully rail stops as well.
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 4:15 p.m. inappropriate
RE: What's realistic: "I might disagree regarding dispersal of jobs. Concentration of jobs is what makes public transit efficient."
Then we do agree. I'm not talking about "corporate campuses" spread from Bellingham to Centralia, I'm talking about the existing urban centers like Everett, Tacoma and Bremerton and Olympia.
Posted Wed, Mar 12, 7:38 p.m. inappropriate
urban centers: Yes, I'm a big fan of the region's smaller old downtowns too. It's exciting as HELL (being a city nerd) to watch downtowns in places like Bremerton, Tacoma, Everett, Kirkland, and so on reinvigorate and grow -- and these are great spots for new job growth as well as new high-density districts.
Further, a remarkable number of suburban muncipalities are establishing urban mini-downtowns where none existed before. This is also exciting, particularly when they're located on good transit and bike routes and when they're truly mixed-use, mixed-income, and walkable. And don't get me started on Seattle's growing urban village districts.
Posted Thu, Mar 13, 11:13 a.m. inappropriate
good comments: I enjoyed the interesting comments. The underlying message of my data essay was that, like NY, LA, SF, Boston, we already are a "dual" metropolis, with emerging "new urbanist" cores for those who love them, but with extensive "garden city" suburbs for the others (and they are not going away). And that Seattle has become so desirable that traditionally affordable housing is not going to happen. The de facto accommodation, again like the bigger cities noted above, is densification, partly in the form of apartments, condoes and townhouses in the designated major centers and urban villages and along those urban arterials (these can absorb probably 150000 more people under existing zoning) and partly in the form of some doubling up of households and in auixiliary units in and by existing homes (probably another 100000, and more friendly to families). But I strongly urge rejection of any "unlocking the single famiily zoning lock". It is not necessary and would hasten the loss of families and children and exacerbate the rise in home values and prices (for example SF is not over $810000 ir 14 times median household incomes).
Posted Thu, Mar 13, 12:52 p.m. inappropriate
zoning: San Francisco's core problem is far simpler than that. It has fewer housing units than people who want to live there. Price is based on scarcity, and the willingness of enough people to pay painful amounts.
Seattle can avoid SF's type of stratospheric prices by keeping the number of units reasonable in relation to demand. Replacing a house with four townhouses, or two houses with 40 apartments, is helpful.
In fact, even expensive new units help affordability. Everyone who buys/rents one is moving out of somewhere else. The "somewhere else" might not be affordable either, but the butterfly effect causes a shift down the line, which affects the supply/demand balance at all price points.
Posted Fri, Mar 14, 9:43 p.m. inappropriate
Definition of Housing: Is the median house price listed above single family houses, or does it include condos as well?
I agree with the points raised above about creating jobs and more housing in the cities throughout the region. All of those cities with pre world war II street grids are great places for job and housing growth. Their built form is ready for transit -- indeed, these places were built around local street car lines and intercity rail lines
Another point to consider in affordability is transportation costs. Transportation is the second largest household expense, on average 20% of income. Data shows that urban residents have dramatically lower transportation costs than suburbanites or rural dwellers. Given that economic reality, it makes sense for people to spend more on housing in cities if it means they can spend less on transportation (and less time in traffic).
Posted Sat, Mar 15, 10:17 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Definition of Housing: Yes, definitely the data includes condos. Since assessment data are public, one could determine the values separaetly, but would be a lot of work. and yes, people certainly have a trade off between housing and transport costs. That's part of all urban planning models. These prices (housing, transport) are going up at the same awful rate recently, but if transport costs rise faster in the future, people will have an incentive to move closer in.
Posted Sat, Mar 15, 1:26 p.m. inappropriate
Editors Pick Right!: The two editors' picks are perfect. ddmiller and mhays are smack dead on the nut of the issue. Families & Square Footage.
Who gets to have kids? And how many? Just how many square feet do you get and why? Why can't density be family friendly? Wouldn't families make density more family friendly? Wouldn't still MORE density make housing more affordable? When did a quarter acre of grass become an entitlement? When will we see that lush weedfree fescue as the next Hummer? Because you have kids does that mean you get a bigger gas ration? And more water?
This is about, and only about, who gets what.