Seattle
(GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

The Seattle area’s soaring home prices are putting the city and its surrounding neighborhoods in exclusive company when it comes to pricey housing in the United States.

A new analysis from Zillow, the Seattle-based real estate technology company, found that Seattle is among cities with the highest number of $1 million neighborhoods.

Zillow found that nearly one in 20 residential ZIP codes in the U.S. meet that definition, and that there are a total of 1,280 neighborhoods in the country where at least 10 percent of the homes are worth seven figures.

Zillow also said that 346 neighborhoods have been added in the U.S. since 2014 as the housing market continues its strong recovery. Nowhere is that more evident than in West Coast cities, where home prices have bounced back fastest.

In the Seattle area, where a booming technology sector led by companies such as Amazon, Google and Facebook has propelled housing demand and prices to record highs, the city has 38 $1 million neighborhoods, putting it at seventh among the top 10 cities (listed below).

  • New York/Northern New Jersey: 254
  • Los Angeles/Long Beach/Anaheim, Calif.: 146
  • San Francisco: 125
  • Boston: 73
  • San Jose, Calif.: 46
  • Washington, D.C.: 42
  • Seattle: 38
  • Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: 32
  • San Diego: 25
  • Chicago and Philadelphia (tie): 17
Zillow real estate
If you’re in the market, a random search on Zillow’s website of “any price” in the 98117 ZIP code turns up this house, listed at $1,550,000 on NW 65th Street in Ballard. (Zillow.com Photo)

Seattle has added 22 neighborhoods to the $1 million group in the last three years, trailing only New York (53), San Francisco (36) and Los Angeles (29). And the Emerald City has added nine neighborhoods in just the past year, behind New York (13) and L.A. (13).

The nine ZIP codes which moved up in the past year (listed below) include four from the Eastside.

  • 98007
  • 98027
  • 98029
  • 98052
  • 98103
  • 98107
  • 98117
  • 98121
  • 98136

While Seattle chases Silicon Valley for tech supremacy, it still has a ways to go before matching the Bay Area in housing costs.

Nearly 74 percent of all ZIP codes in the San Francisco metropolitan area meet Zillow’s $1 million neighborhood benchmark. One in five San Francisco ZIP codes have been added since 2007.

“As home values reach new peaks, $1 million homes are increasingly common, even in neighborhoods once considered middle class,” Dr. Svenja Gudell, Zillow’s chief economist, said in a news release. “The U.S. median home value is just over $200,000, but in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other expensive cities, homes are worth much more.

“As home values hit seven figures in many neighborhoods, it’s going to have real impacts on affordability for middle-class homeowners whose incomes haven’t kept up,” Gudell continued. “And this imbalance especially has implications for people on fixed incomes whose property taxes are rising along with their home value.”

Some markets aren’t sharing in the high-priced rebound from the Great Recession. Zillow said that St. Louis and Cincinnati, where the median home value is nearly $50,000 below the national median, have not added any $1 million neighborhoods in the past 10 years.

And in Las Vegas, where the housing crisis hit especially hard, Sin City has only gained one $1 million ZIP code since 2014.

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