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MONEY
Seattle’s Hot, Chicago’s Not
And other insights from 20 years of home value data
I dove into the latest data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index and unearthed a few surprises about the vastly divergent trajectories of local housing markets. Some eye-wateringly expensive markets just keep getting pricier, while home values in some corners of the country aren’t even keeping pace with inflation.
In the not-surprising category, the Seattle metro area, home to a booming tech sector, showed the strongest long-term home price appreciation, up 198 percent from July 2004 through July 2024. (Case-Shiller reports values as an index rather than a dollar amount, but the median price in the Seattle metro area in the second quarter of 2024 was $829,600, according to the National Association of Realtors.)
Also no shock that Portland, Oregon, and Denver ranked in the top five among the nation’s 20 largest metro areas. Home prices have been soaring in those markets.
But I was surprised to see Dallas (up 158 percent in two decades) and Charlotte (up 148 percent) rank so high. Both are Sun Belt boom towns, of course. But Dallas and Charlotte long had been able to build their way out of affordability problems — compared to coastal markets, it’s just easier to put up new homes in inland areas…
