I live in Seattle and I used to live in bay area. I read a lot of good blogs from everyone and I like to provide some informations which I think that'll explain why Seattle housing market grow double digits.

1 Strong job market recently
There are big companies in Seattle: Microsoft HQ, Boeing, Costco HQ, Starbucks HQ, Amazon HQ & bio-tech. Microsoft will hire another 10,000 people in few years. They rent two buildings which can hold about 5000 people in city Bellevue recently. Boeing, Costco and Starbucks are doing extremely well these years. Few weeks ago, one girl from California who applied my rental house, she told me that she works for Google, and Google opened two branch offices in Seattle area.

2 Excellent public schools
In year 2003, according to Newsweek, 3 high schools in Bellevue ranked 14, 17 & 19 over 1,300 high schools.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18757087/?sort=Rank&count=1236&start=0&limit=100&year=2003&Search=washington

If you search “Washington” in the refine result field for the year 2003 to 2007, 3 high schools in Bellevue are always at top 50. This news had a big impact on the housing market in end of year 2004. The house market in Bellevue began to soar since then. Most of house’s price doubled today from year 2003 in this school area. The hottest area is Somerset. The area has a best elementary school and best high school in Bellevue. If there is open house in Somerset area, you will see bunch of the Chinese and Indians, it is exact like in Bay area. The house is over bid here also.

3. Terrible traffic
The land in Seattle is like bay area, the highway can’t be expanding due to lake Washington. The public transportation is bus only; there are no Bart or subway systems here. The longer commute causes central Seattle area house price rocking high.

4. Lower house price
Compare to other west coast cities such as LA, San Diego or San Francisco, the house price is still lower here. The SFH of 2000 SQFT in Somerset area is about $750K. Comparing to the good school area like Lafayette in bay area, the SFH will be over 1 million there.

5 Low house supplies
There is no new land to build in the central area such as Bellevue or Mercer Island. When the house market keeps going up, people tends to hold their house even the rent is low. Plus a lot of people from California moved in. According to state department of license, the California is the largest source people move to Seattle area from out of state.

From above, you can see why Seattle housing market still grows. However, keep in mind, the job market is the key to drive the house market. Comparing the job market, Seattle is still far behind bay area. Microsoft and Boeing are the two major hiring companies here. If Microsoft and Boeing stop hiring, the house market will drop. Think about .com burst in year 2001, the house market was terrible in Seattle. Hope the information will be helpful to everyone.