Analysis: Seattle home prices up 26 percent over past decade; Property tax rates rose to 1.17 percent

Medium realestate5

Home prices took a rose throughout Seattle between 2012 and 2015, a BlockShopper analysis showed.

The median sale price in the area was $317,433 in 2012, but climbed to $428,035 in 2015 -- a difference of 26 percent. At the same time, the median Effective Tax Rate (ETR) rose from 0.97 percent in 2012 to 1.17 percent in 2015.

A home's ETR is its property tax bill divided by its marked value. A $200,000 home with a $3,000 property tax bill would have an ETR of 1.5 percent.

The median ETR in Illinois is 2.3 percent, according to a 2007 WalletHub analysis of U.S. Census data. In Indiana, it's 0.87 percent.

The average $200,000 home in Illinois has a property tax bill of $4,600, versus $1,740 in Indiana.

In Seattle, a $200,000 home would have a bill of $2,339 based on the area's median ETR. Parts of Seattle have an ETR between 0.85 and 2.06 percent.

The area's projected median sale price for 2018 is $316,746, at which time a homeowner will have paid an estimated $35,702 in property taxes on the home since 2012.

The Blockshopper analysis uses real home values, adjusting historical sales prices for inflation. The U.S. inflation rate from 2007 to 2015 was 14.3 percent, meaning a home had to appreciate by more than that to actually increase in value.

The table below compares sale prices and property taxes within Seattle. To analyze the data more precisely, BlockShopper broke up suburbs into neighborhoods.

Neighborhood
2012 Sales
2012 Median Price
2012 Median Property Tax
2015 Sales
2015 Median Price
2015 Median Property Tax
Southwest Seattle
1
$149,800
$1,872 (1.25% ETR)
106
$176,772, up 15%
$2,850 (1.61% ETR)
Crown Hill
1
$318,860
$3,210 (1.01% ETR)
92
$396,614, up 20%
$4,590 (1.16% ETR)
Ravenna
1
$483,640
$4,106 (0.85% ETR)
400
$445,753, down 8%
$5,120 (1.15% ETR)

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