[caption id="attachment_672" align="alignnone" width="445" caption="Bremerton (left) and Tacoma (Right)"]
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Could this be a sign that the economy may be slowly recovering? Home prices have historically been used as an economic barometer that clues us in on the state of the economy whether global, national, regional, or local. A friend of mine spotted an article by Les Christie, a journalist of CNNMoney.com and was kind enough to send it to me (thanks Bob!).
In this article Christie lists eight cities in the U.S. where home prices are rising. Of those eight, two cities I serve were mentioned:
Bremerton came in at #5:
“Home price forecast (1 year):* 4.2%”
“Home prices rose quite steeply here during the boom years, gaining about 110% between 2000 and 2007 and have declined only modestly since then, down 18% from their peak. But the city and its suburbs, nestled around the Puget Sound, have limited open land for building new homes, which props up resale prices. Plus employment is strong: The metro area’s unemployment rate was 7.6% in December, well below the national average.”
Tacoma came in at #8
“Home price forecast (1 year):* 3.9%”
“Tacoma’s downtown has gone through a revival over the past few decades, and its metro area lies within striking distance of some of the most spectacular scenery in the Pacific Northwest, including the Puget Sound, Mount Rainier and Olympia National Park.
Still, the local housing market has lost more value since its peak than did nearby Seattle. It did, however, outperform the nation as a whole.
Careful growth policies that Washington has urged its cities to pursue will help boost prices in Tacoma. The city is projected to keep growing, with an annualized gain of 3.9% through 2011.”
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