Report: Seattle is one of top US metros investing in new housing, pacing behind Portland

Click through the gallery to see how Seattle stacks up against other major U.S. metropolitan areas in new housing investments. Click through the gallery to see how Seattle stacks up against other major U.S. metropolitan areas in new housing investments. Photo: Skyhobo/Getty Images/iStockphoto Photo: Skyhobo/Getty Images/iStockphoto Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Report: Seattle is one of top US metros investing in new housing, pacing behind Portland 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

The housing market in the Seattle area is notoriously expensive and competitive, but compared to other metropolitan areas, the Emerald City is still investing a lot in building new housing units.

Using home pricing data from Zillow and building permits from the U.S. Census Bureau, a new study from Construction Coverage ranked the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro 13th in the U.S. for large metros making the most investments in new housing.

"New housing construction in the U.S. is slowing down, which isn't good for families already struggling to afford their first home," the study stated. "Even though multi-family dwellings have accounted for the lion’s share of new home construction growth since the recession, the shift away from single-family homes has failed to lower prices."

The study estimated that 67.5 new housing units were built in Seattle per 10,000 residents. That equaled a total of 26,584 housing units in the city, and of those, 67.1% of them were considered multi-family. The median home value in Seattle was estimated to be $515,535, way over the median sale price for new homes in the U.S. which reached a record high of $348,200 at the start of 2020.

Compare that to the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro, which ranked 35th on the list, and you'll immediately see the difference in new housing investments and affordability. The study stated that San Francisco only built a mere 29.9 new housing units per 10,000 residents. The median home price in the Bay Area was more than double that of Seattle's -- $1,072,604.

The Portland metro, which included Vancouver, Wash., narrowly beat Seattle in new housing investments, ranking 12th overall in the study. While the two metros were similar in the ratio of new homes built per 10,000 residents, Seattle had a higher population growth rate than Portland.

Overall, the Evergreen State ranked 9th in the country for new housing investments, building a total of 64.9 housing units per 10,000 residents. Surprisingly, nearby Idaho was the state investing the most in new housing, with Boise City ranking first on the list for midsize metros and Coeur d'Alene ranking third in small metros.

To see how Seattle stacks up against other major U.S. metropolitan areas investing in new housing, click through the gallery above.

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