SPOKANE'S HOUSING ATTAINABILITY CRISIS

Written by Ryan Smith, Government Affairs Coordinator
Spokane Home Builders Association

Washington State, and the United States as a whole, is currently in the midst of a brutal Housing Crisis. Housing Prices have been growing nonstop since the start of 2020, and unfortunately, this is not going to change in 2022 unless we can get more houses built to meet the demand. That demand being affordable houses that average, middle class folks can afford. As it stands right now in Spokane/Spokane Valley, the median price of a new home is valued at $476,798. Without context, that seems to be a "reasonable" price for a home; the city of Spokane has a lot to offer its residents. However, when compared to the median household income of $51,133 for the area, the problem becomes much clearer. This extreme discrepancy between how much money people are earning and how much they need to buy a house is quite astounding. This is why banks offer mortgages; unfortunately, the income needed to even qualify for a mortgage (at that median priced home) is $111,950.

The secondary problem that is adding to the housing crisis is that building homes is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. Washington state prides itself on leading the charge to becoming more green. One way the state and many cities have gone about doing this is to build new houses that are green. This includes houses without access to Natural Gas, along with measures to ensure the surrounding environment is not harmed. This is all well and good, except for the fact that the laws and codes that enforce these practices drive the cost of building the house up. Additionally, the nation as a whole is experiencing a serious labor shortage, which has caused the cost of labor to go up as well.

Combine all these factors together, and more and more families get priced out of homeownership. To be exact, for every $1000 that a house increases in value, 185 families are priced out in the Spokane area. At the state level, that priced out number is 2182 families. As it stands right now, 81% of the
people living in the Spokane area simply cannot afford to buy a house. Only 2 people out of every 10 are making enough money to support the insane costs of housing.

The price of homeownership is through the roof right now, and the solution involves building affordable housing units, such as condos, duplexes, and mini-homes. Unfortunately, there really isn't an upside to this data. As long as it is difficult to build a house, it will remain too expensive for literally hundreds of thousands of Americans across WA state to buy their own home.

www.SHBA.com
(509) 532-4990
5813 E 4th Ave, Suite 201
Spokane Valley, WA

The Spokane Home Builders Association is a member-driven organization that works to elevate professionalism in the residential construction industry, provide innovative resources and information to our members and engage in informative, effective advocacy on construction issues to create affordable housing options for the community. We promote, protect and educate the housing industry and our community.