San Juan County has most expensive Washington homes

Puget Sound Business Journal by G. Scott Thomas , American City Business Journals

San Juan County has the most expensive homes in Washington, among all the state’s counties.

Among all the counties in Washington state, San Juan County has the most expensive homes. The median home price there (half cost more, half cost less) is $487,500.

That’s the 39th highest median price among all 3,143 counties in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. In King County, where Washington state’s second most pricey homes are located, the median price of a home is $398,600, the 68th highest price in the country.

The county with Washington state’s cheapest homes is Garfield County, where the median house price is $113,500, which is No. 1,322 on the list of all U.S. counties.

Where are the nation’s most expensive homes?

That would be Nantucket Island, a playground for the well-to-do in Massachusetts. Its status is confirmed by housing values.

The typical house in Nantucket County, Mass., is worth more than $1 million, according to the latest figures from the bureau’s survey. The median value of homes on the island is officially listed as $1,000,001, which is as high as the ACS goes. The actual figure is probably higher.

Nantucket is the only U.S. county with a median house value expressed in seven digits. The runners-up are Marin County, Calif. (a San Francisco suburb), at $880,000, and New York County, N.Y. (better known as Manhattan), at $800,400.

Another 31 counties — a mixture of affluent suburbs and upscale resort areas — have median house values between $500,000 and $800,000.