Yelm Washington; Growth and Real Estate Market Report

Yelm; Growth and Real Estate Market Report

Yelm has been recognized as the fastest growing community in the State of Washington in terms of population, development and commercial business relocation.  Just a few years ago, Yelm was a small farming community, with 10-15% of its residents being military personnel assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.  Over the course of the past 3-5 years, Yelm has gotten on the map as a very convenient location for Lewis-McChord personnel, and for folks who want to get out of the city, but still need to commute to either the north (Spanaway, Tacoma etc.) or to the south (Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater).

Real estate in Yelm is still priced a couple of percentage points below the communities to the north and south.  The reason for this is the fact that while Yelm has gotten on the map...it is still gaining in popularity.  I would expect property values in Yelm to be on par with the rest of Thurston County in the next couple of years. 

For Military Personnel, the commute to Yelm is perfect.  The little known Roy gate, which exits post in the town of Roy, does not show up on any maps.  If you are a resident of Yelm, and work on Post, the commute via the Roy gate makes travel to any point on Ft. Lewis or McChord AFB no more that about 30 minutes (20 minutes to the airfield)...without having to deal with the freeway.  There is an alternate route thru Nisqually, about the same amount of time, but it requires getting on interstate 5, and then looping around the south side of Ft. Lewis.

As mentioned earlier, commercial and infrastructure growth in Yelm has also had a big impact on residential development.  Wal-Mart came to Yelm in 2008 (Costco is negotiating to build a store as well), and at about the same time a new movie cinema complex was built; the small strip mall is turning into a real mall, and the city just finished construction of several new schools....the new middle school and high school is completed, and work on the elementary schools is underway.  Read More about the Yelm Real Estate Market at Yelm Property Sales