The real estate world is full of unofficial rules that many older generations love to pass on to new first-time homebuyers as words of wisdom. However, the housing market has gone through so many dramatic changes in the last 10 to 15 years that many of these "rules" have now become obsolete. 

There is at least one instance of when the old rule is still true, however; as it seems that holding onto a home for longer than 5 years will bring a bigger return on initial investment. "A new analysis by Zillow... found that sellers who had held onto their home for a little bit of time are seeing huge returns..." With Oakland and Portland actually beating out the Seattle area in terms of percentage gained, our beloved city still fares amazingly well. According to a recent article on Geekwire, "Seattle sellers, bowing to dollar signs and in the influx of well-paid technology workers looking to purchase in the area, gained 53.1 percent or $185,000 on a 2016 sale for a home in which they had lived for an average of about nine years."

The cities in the top ten are mostly located in the west, with just Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Boston representing the rest of the country. Topping the list is Oakland and Portland, followed by San Jose, Denver, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Seattle. "Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell said in a news release [that] "buying a new home is one of the biggest financial decisions people will make in their lifetime, and it really paid off for sellers in these cities. Every city on this list has been growing extremely fast over the past decade, with the majority passing peak home value hit during the housing bubble. It's extremely difficult to time the market, but if you're a longtime homeowner in one of these cities, you could potentially see a great return on your investment.""

The economists Zillow and writers at Geekwire agree with us, that your potential doesn't even seem to be slowing, considering home values in our city rose 15.5 percent year over year. This makes Seattle the fastest growing market on the list. The market it hot and seems to be sticking,