Maybe It’s the Wine?

Red, white… orange?

Yakima, WA, a rural town in Washington state’s wine country, has something new to toast to — home values. Relatively speaking, that is.

The Yakima Valley in Eastern Washington was one of the top performing real estate markets in Washington state during the third quarter. On a national level, Yakima ranked in the top 20% of US real estate markets with a year-over-year change of just -1.0%.

The splattering of orange in the map below illustrates home value appreciation over the past five years. Orange represents year-over-year value change of +5%. (Layman’s translation: orange = “whew, my house is still appreciating!”)

What’s keeping Yakima home values out of the red? Well, maybe the answer is in the red.

In recent years, Washington’s wine industry has become the fastest-growing agricultural sector in the state. The number of Washington wineries has increased 400% in the last decade, attracting 2 million annual visitors to Washington wine country and creating a $2 million wine-tourism industry.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the economic downturn, people are still shelling out for the necessities in life. Like, good wine.