Let’s check in on the NWMLS statistics from around the sound.
Here’s where the YOY stats stand for each of the six counties as of November 2008:
(Note: The “Sales” data below represents pending sales, not closed sales.)
King - Price: -9.2% | Listings: +2.2% | Sales: -21.2% | MOS: 8.7
Snohomish - Price: -11.1% | Listings: -1.6% | Sales: -24.3% | MOS: 11.2
Pierce - Price: -13.2% | Listings: -10.0% | Sales: -14.7% | MOS: 10.1
Kitsap - Price: -2.1% | Listings: -5.6% | Sales: -25.0% | MOS: 13.3
Thurston - Price: -6.8% | Listings: -7.5% | Sales: -22.9% | MOS: 9.3
Island - Price: +14.1% | Listings: -1.3% | Sales: -25.0% | MOS: 20.5
Skagit - Price: -0.8% | Listings: +3.0% | Sales: -35.5% | MOS: 15.1
Since the massive drop in closed sales was particularly notable this month, here’s a bonus chart comparing each county’s closed sales for November 2007 and November 2008.
Snohomish and Skagit counties saw larger year-to-year declines in closed sales than King.
The graphs below only represent the market action since January 2006. If you want to see the long-term trends, feel free to download the spreadsheet (or in Excel 2003 format) that all of these graphs come from, and adjust the x-axis to your liking. Also included in the spreadsheet is data for Whatcom County, for anyone up north that might be interested.
First up, it’s raw median prices.
Median prices actually increased month-to-month in King, Kitsap, Island, and Skagit counties, while declining in Snohomish, Pierce, and Thurston. Prices fell the most in Pierce County, where $14,699 was knocked off the median from October. Meanwhile, with a paltry 44 closed sales, Island County’s median actually shot up $44,000, a 14% YOY increase. I’m sure that’s representative of the market up there (yeah right).
Here’s how each of the counties look compared to their peak:
King - Peak: July 2007 | Down 17.9%
Snohomish - Peak: March 2007 | Down 16.3%
Pierce - Peak: August 2007 | Down 19.6%
Kitsap - Peak: September 2007 | Down 14.8%
Thurston - Peak: July 2007 | Down 10.5%
Island - Peak: August 2007 | Down 7.4%
Skagit - Peak: June 2007 | Down 8.1%
Not surprisingly, King, Pierce, and Snohomish continue to lead the pack in overall declines. Pierce County took the new lead in November, with median prices down nearly 20%. Over in Island County, even though the median shot up $44k in a month, they’re still off 7.4% from the peak.
Here’s another take on Median Prices, looking at the year-to-year changes over the last two years.
The wildly noisy median price in Island was the only one to make it into positive YOY territory in November, with price declines in the other counties ranging from -0.8% in Skagit to -13.2% in Pierce. With the continued steady price declines in Pierce, it doesn’t look like the foreclosure situation down there is likely to improve soon.
Here’s the graph of listings for each county, indexed to January 2006.
Same story as most recent months, with inventory in King still coming in with a far greater increase than any other county, and overall standing inventory steadily declining across the Sound.
Here’s a look at the YOY change in listings.
King and Skagit were the only counties to have more homes on the market than November last year, with less than 5% gains in each county. The largest inventory drop was 10% in Pierce.
Pending sales, also indexed to January 2006:
Pending sales marked moderate declines in every county but Skagit, which actually increased from 68 pendings in October to 71 in November. Woo, time to party. Unfortunately, pending sales in Snohomish and Island counties were so dismal in November that I had to adjust the vertical scale on this graph.
Lastly, here’s the YOY graph of sales:
After the big spike up and then back down, year-over-year sales have settled back down in most counties. The biggest drop was in Skagit, where pendings fell 35.5%.
Months of Supply was pretty interesting this month. While Island has been sky high for some time, in November their MOS shot up to over 20. Yowza. Not a good time to be selling a home in Island County. Also, even though King County’s MOS is at its highest point ever at 8.7, it was the lowest of the Puget Sound Counties in November.
softwarengineer » Dec 9, 2008 at 1:27 pm
WHERE’S THE PRICE BOTTOM IN SEATTLE?
In my book, the bottom will be much like the Great Depression…..when it fully collapses [we have a long way to go yet] it will flatten for a decade or two.
You can’t miss it.
The smartest RE shoppers during the GD didn’t buy until they had to. If the banks doors were closed, the one with the most in his/her cash can bought apartment complexes, farms, companies, etc….
johnnybigspenda » Dec 9, 2008 at 4:56 pm
The Problem with Housing Stats: (article from SA)….
Canadians think house prices are tumbling in Canada thanks to Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) reports that say prices have dropped 10% over the year. But it’s generally recognized their methodology is flawed: CREA compares average prices between two periods even though the composition of houses sold in the two periods can be quite different in terms of type, dwelling size, quality, etc
The Tim » Dec 9, 2008 at 5:00 pm
johnnybigspenda @ 2,
We have discussed that same issue here in the past. In fact, every month when I post the main NWMLS update the median price has an asterisk next to it linking to this post: Median Price Not Telling the Whole Truth.
Even as prices are falling, we should keep in mind these shortcomings with the median price statistic. That’s why my favorite measure of prices is Case-Shiller. It’s not without its own faults, but it is miles ahead of the raw closed sales median.
Leo » Dec 9, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Hi The Tim, why YOY stats shows Sales: -21.2% for King County while graphs shows -43% Closed Sales? What’s the difference? Thank you
deejayoh » Dec 9, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Frankly, it doesn’t matter what index you use – they all tell pretty much the same story. The Median price is a bit more volatile than other measures of home prices but the trend is very consistent and unmistakable across all major measures of housing price. As softwareengineer would say: “see the proof”
http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/9290/indicesph6.png
johnnybigspenda » Dec 9, 2008 at 9:04 pm
cool. i just thought it was cool that you were so far ahead of the curve on ‘getting the real story’… appreciate your efforts Tim
harbord » Dec 9, 2008 at 9:36 pm
As in any bear market, the anecdotal stats for individual periods are more prone to distort. Because of anemic volume, it’s more important to watch and graph the trends.
Of course this type of statistical analysis is useless to your average 6 percenter.
Most of them have no clue. They don’t understand what happend, what’s happening or what is going to happen.
Plymster » Dec 9, 2008 at 11:18 pm
harbord – regarding the average 6 percenter…
I hear ya. For the past couple of days, I’ve been looking at Aubrey Cohen’s RE News blog on the Seattle PI, and they seem to have their heads stuck so far in the sand (or elsewhere), I can’t even stand sifting through the willful ignorence of their comments.
I doubt we’ll be seeing many more average 6 percenters over the next few years, since 869 closed sales/month doesn’t really sustain that much of an RE industry.
Leo – regarding Tim’s YOY sales discrepency:
In these stats: King – Price: -9.2% | Listings: +2.2% | Sales: -21.2% | MOS: 8.7, Tim is referring to Pending Sales (sales that are in the pipe and awaiting closing). The -43% YOY Closed Sales is tracking those sales that acutally closed.
The Tim did a piece on the recent wide discrepency between the Pending Sales (which used to predict the next month’s closed sales within a few percentage points, but is now getting further and further off).
Buceri » Dec 10, 2008 at 4:46 am
All I Know is that Island has OBVIOUSLY bottomed out and is making a huuuuuuge come back; “see the proof”….OK, no links; just look at a couple of Tim’s graphs.
All I gotta do now is to find “Island” on a map and make my move!!! Gems Ray, I am telling you, Gems!!!
SemperFinance » Dec 10, 2008 at 5:55 am
According to Oppenheimer Financial Analyst Meredith Whitney, who has been spot on with her economic forecasts, she expects to see another 20% decline in home prices as the economy continues to sink into a deeper recession and that they are more likely to reach year 200 price levels. Seattle is obviously lagging the rest of the country in home price declines, however, that does not mean we won’t see a further 20-30% price correction. The existing homes that are sitting on the market are far overvalued in comparison with the rate of asset price deflation in the general economy. Seattle does not have an economy that is immune to outside macroeconomic conditions, which should prove to be true in the next 6 months. Major layoffs in the aerospace, biotech and the software industries would catapult the local home market into a deflationary rate congruent to those seen across the rest of the US economy. Home buyers beware, you could end up underwater like so many others have…
SemperFinance » Dec 10, 2008 at 5:58 am
typo above to read, “According to Oppenheimer Financial Analyst Meredith Whitney, who has been spot on with her economic forecasts, she expects to see another 20% decline in home prices as the economy continues to sink into a deeper recession and that they are more likely to reach year 2000 price levels.”
Plymster » Dec 10, 2008 at 10:16 am
Thank goodness that was a typo – I don’t have any skins or arrowheads to trade for a house. :-)
jimmythev » Dec 10, 2008 at 11:05 am
So, on a side note… has anyone noticed the price of Rent going down? I’ve been keeping my eye on Craigslist and I’m noticing a LOT of “Price Reduced” and “1 month Free rent” ads. I have no statistical evidence, but it might be interesting to see if there is some available. If the cost to rent is going down (Probably due to people taking on roommates and condo’s/houses converting to rentals), wouldn’t that put more downward pressure on realestate prices…
Tim… do you know of anywhere to find stats on the average rental price? Is there anyway we could start graphing that?
gregxiu » Dec 10, 2008 at 11:28 am
Listen to this. Cramer favors SEATTLE, and the Realtors Assoc. prez is wording things to fit Realtors agenda.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_WuwoDYPdQ
deejayoh » Dec 10, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Here is a comprehensive view of rent trends for all the indices I have been able to find, going back to 1980
http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/3628/renttrendsuk6.png
I’ll have a post on this in the next week or so.
Civil Servant » Dec 10, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Deejayoh, any chance I could persuade you to put an inflation line on the rent graph at #15? Or a line that shows these amounts with respect to median income? Thanks for looking into this — we’re considering moving to a cheaper and/or nicer apartment, since rents and availability *seem* to have improved since summer 2007 (and we feel fine about committing to one more year spent out of the house market), but it will be great to get some data.
SemperFinance: best user name ever. Hat tip to you, Sir/Ma’am.
cheapseats » Dec 10, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I renewed my rental today for a year. My rates were dropped this week after my initial letter that they would rise 6%. I asked about that and they said with the economy going down they thought it was the right thing to do…
Well that and the fairly large vacancy rate that is somewhat new to my area…