Washington State began legal sale of recreational cannabis in 2014. With this, dispensaries were established across the state. The question that this data visualization attempts to illustrate is how did the presence of these dispensaries affect real estate prices?

The real estate variables are median home sales prices obtained from Zillow. All cannabis location and sales data is from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Data Portal.

As of the end of 2018, there were over 500 cannabis dispensaries in Washington according to the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board. The markers in the map below show the locations of these dispensaries, while the heat layer corresponds to the total cannabis sales in dollars since 2014.

Washington and Colorado were the first states in the western United States to sell cannabis for recreational use legally, with sales in both states beginning in 2014. Oregon followed shortly after in 2015. The median home sales price for all of these states is plotted over the years and compared to the U.S. median home sales price.

The percent change in median home sales price is shown below.

The percent change in median home sales price in Washington zip codes with cannabis dispensaries vs the percent change in median home sales price in the entire state and the entire country is shown below.