Year over year housing prices have surged along the SW Washington coast. Although much of Washington State has seen low inventory and steep rises in median home prices, the Long Beach Peninsula has been much more aggressive. For years now, the beach has been a value proposition with prices well below the metropolitan inland areas of Portland-Vancouver and Seattle-Tacoma. The peninsula has also been a great value when compared against the northern Oregon coast communities of Astoria, Warrington, Seaside, and Canon Beach.
It stands to reason that the stars have aligned, so to speak; call it the COVID inventory crunch, but inventory has been tight and that is coinciding with the "discovery" of the great opportunity in Pacific County. The greatest real estate value op' on the West Coast has apparently been discovered, but it still remains a better value than places like the Oregon Coast.
Some may think that prices are being driven up by Californians moving in, and that may be partially true, but more than likely it is retiring people from the Puget Sound area and Portland-Vancouver. Prices in those regions are highly inflated and the coast looks too good to be true from their perspective.
As for those pesky Californians, you may be surprised to find that once out of the Central and Southern coastal areas, California real estate is actually cheaper than most of Western Washington. I wrote this article with data from the MLS and the National Association of Realtors® recently comparing Clark County, Washington (Vancouver) and King County, Washington (Seattle) against California. It is safe to say that 40% of Californians live in areas with LOWER home prices than Clark County and 70% of them live in areas with lower median home values than King County!
Did you see that coming?
Here is the article from Rod's Real Estate News posted last Friday, click here.
