I recently updated the cities data sheet on this website to reflect changing demographics and housing costs among other notable data. That data is stored locally at this URL: City Data for Selected Washington Cities or in the column to the right of this article if you are in a browser on PC/Mac. This data was designed to show the various areas in the state and how they compared for climate, population, housing, etc.
Some interesting things have happened over the last several years in Washington State. Washington remains one of if not the strongest economies in the USA. This has led us to rising population and higher housing costs do to strong demand.
Our market like most of the country has cooled a bit, but upward price pressure continues, just not at the feverish pace of a couple years ago. The Puget Sound region has become one of the most expensive large metro area housing markets in the USA.
One thing that I have noticed is that Washington is no longer a "value" proposition for housing even for people moving from California. It is true that California still has a significantly higher median home price than does Washington. But when looking at pricing for Californian's not living near the coast, Washington is more expensive.
Housing is important and Washington is very expensive, but other factors play a role in choosing a place to live or retire. When you take housing out of the equation Washington is a third less expensive than California for total cost of living. When factoring in housing we are still more than 25% cheaper.
The median home price in Sacramento CA for example at the end of May this year was $462,000. That is pretty cheap actually compared to Washington's west side cities, look at the chart comparing select cities in Washington to Northern California:
