WA state down payments on houses among most expensive in U.S. How much do area homes cost?
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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)
