By Mike Rosenberg | The Seattle Times
The Seattle-area housing- market surge has reached new heights, again: The region has now led the nation in home-price increases for 14 months in a row, tied for the longest streak for any metro area in the country since 2001.
Single-family-home prices grew 12.7 percent in October from a year ago across King, Snohomish and Pierce counties, according to the monthly Case-Shiller home-price index, released Tuesday.
Home prices nationally rose 6.2 percent, three times the rate of inflation and the biggest increase in more than three years. Even so, Seattle home costs grew almost twice as fast as the U.S. average.
Compared to a month prior, home values actually dipped 0.1 percent in Seattle, though when adjusted for normal seasonal changes, prices grew 0.6 percent, about the same as the national average.
The 14 consecutive months as the nation’s hottest housing market is already a record for Seattle. Previously, Seattle had topped the nation a few times here and there for shorter periods, mostly recently right before the housing bubble popped in 2008.
