Seattle Market: Overvalued?
A recently released report from Global Insight and National City Corp. found that the typical house in the Seattle metropolitan area was 31.7% overvalued in the last quarter of 2006. This was up 6.4% from the prior quarter and 24.3% from the end of 2005. Many local experts disagree that Seattle’s market is overvalued at all.
Global Insight officials are quick to point out that this does not mean that local home prices should expect to decrease by this amount. Seattle’s strong economy and the fact that prices did not start climbing until much later in the game appears to have diminished the possible freefall in home values.