The data for Bainbridge, supplied by the Kitsap County Assessor's Office, goes back only 14 years. All other analyses are based on complete 15-year data. The Seattle Times also looked at housing affordability, using the same methodology used by Washington State University's Center for Real Estate Research and the National Association of Realtors - with one exception. We relied on estimates of household income from the state's Office of Financial Management. WSU uses median family income estimates from a private demographics company.
Family income excludes one-person households and is therefore higher.
Thus our analysis finds King County less affordable than WSU's statistics would indicate based on family income. The state Office of Financial Management estimates household income by looking at payroll data reported by employers. We then calculated how much income was needed to afford a median-priced home in each neighborhood. Of course, half the homes selling in any particular neighborhood are at or below the median price. So even if most of the houses are out of a buyer's reach, some probably are affordable.