WA state down payments on houses among most expensive in U.S. How much do area homes cost?
Over the past several years, Washington state has been reckoning with an affordable housing crisis. Earlier this year, Gov. Jay Inslee proposed funneling $4 billion of the state’s budget toward affordable housing reform. Overall, the topic of reasonable housing has been a hot-button issue for Washingtonians, and has been a prominent point of discussion for writers at The News Tribune.
Over the past three years, average home prices in Tacoma have risen in value by over $100,000. Tacoma’s median home sale price has soared to a whopping $460,000, according to real estate website Redfin. The average price dropped from over $500,000 in June 2022 to $425,000 in December. The rate has been rising ever since.
If these dollar amounts seem steep, it’s because they are.
In fact, according to a new report from personal finance website Moneywise, which found that Washingtonians pay the third-highest down payments for homes. The study examined all 50 states’ median house prices and calculated a down payment of 13%, which is the average down payment percentage, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Across the U.S., average home down payments hover around $43,870. But Washingtonians should expect to cough up significantly more cash to settle into a home. Moneywise calculated the nation’s median house prices on Zillow and found that Washington’s median home value is $595,732, a sum much higher than Tacoma’s average. Down payments in the Evergreen State average around $77,445.
Compare Washington to West Virginia, which boasts upfront house payments of just $16,783 – a rate four times cheaper than Washington’s. The report states the Mountain State is the most affordable place in America for first-time home buyers, with its average home price gravitating around $129,000.
The only states more expensive than Washington are Hawaii, which processes down payments exceeding $110,000 – nearly the same amount of money of an entire West Virginia home – and California, just shy of hitting $100,000 cash payments at $98,900.
Puget Sound region’s median house sale prices
Despite Redfin finding the median sale price of a house in Tacoma to be $425,000, that figure shifts depending on where in the city you’re looking at homes. The following graph uses data from Zillow’s home value index and automatically updates every month:
ZIP code 98408, which encompasses sections of central and south Tacoma, has an average home value of $410,407. But ZIP codes in northern Tacoma, near Proctor and Stadium districts, have median home values exceeding $500,000.
Cities surrounding Tacoma, such as Puyallup and Graham, also have home prices above $500,000. But ZIP codes in University Place, Federal Way and northeast Tacoma garner median house prices that close in on or rise above $600,000.
Other high-priced states
Although buying a home in Washington is becoming pricier every month so far this year, the Evergreen State isn’t the worst off. Here are the top ten most-expensive states for median home prices:
Hawaii ($848,926)
California ($760,800)
Washington ($595,732)
Colorado ($559,838)
Massachusetts ($559,312)
Utah ($544,868)
Oregon ($502,215)
Idaho ($466,435)
New Jersey ($441,762)
Nevada ($434,832)
This story was originally published April 20, 2023 at 12:03 PM with the headline "WA state down payments on houses among most expensive in U.S. How much do area homes cost?."
