July market stats were released by the NWMLS today. First up, here’s a snippet from their press release:
Multiple offers for homes stimulated by constricted supply, favorable financing.
Brokers around western Washington reported brisk activity during July with home buyers scrambling to take advantage of attractive financing while encountering shrinking inventory and, in some areas, rising prices.
One broker remarked now is the “best buying opportunity,” she has witnessed in nearly 20 years.
That last line could be in every single NWMLS press release, every single month.
I’ll save the rest of the press release for tomorrow’s reporting roundup. For now, here’s the percent of sales that were bank owned. Another drop, though not nearly as dramatic as we had been seeing, and despite that dip in REO sales, the median price declined a bit this month.
All righty, on with our usual monthly stats.
NWMLS monthly reports include an undisclosed and varying number of
sales from previous months in their pending and closed sales statistics.
Here’s your King County SFH summary, with the arrows to show whether the year-over-year direction of each indicator is favorable or unfavorable news for buyers and sellers (green = favorable, red = unfavorable):
| July 2012 | Number | MOM | YOY | Buyers | Sellers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Listings | 5,070 | -0.4% | -38.1% |  |
 |
| Closed Sales | 2,120 | +0.1% | +26.3% | |
|
| SAAS (?) | 1.26 | -4.7% | -29.3% | |
|
| Pending Sales | 2,561 | -7.7% | +11.5% | |
|
| Months of Supply | 1.98 | +7.9% | -44.4% | |
|
| Median Price* | $375,250 | -1.3% | +7.2% | |
|
Feel free to download the updated Seattle Bubble Spreadsheet (Excel 2003 format), but keep in mind the caution above.
Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:
Breaking from the trend of recent years, sales actually increased just a bit between June and July.
Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.
It’s hard to tell when this year is so far below every other year on the scale, but inventory flipped back down again in July. So much for hopes that selection might increase a bit in the second half of the year.
Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. In place of the now-unreliable measure of pending sales, the “demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade.
Nothing new here, just the same old story of low supply and increasing demand.
Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:
The yearly gain in median price dipped back below double-digits with the drop from June to July.
And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994.
July 2012: $375,250
July 2005: $375,000
Here are the Times and P-I headlines.
Seattle Times: [none yet]
Seattle P-I: King County house prices up from 2011, down from June
Check back tomorrow for the full reporting roundup.
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“One broker remarked now is the “best buying opportunity,” she has witnessed in nearly 20 years.”
Would that mean that buyers are getting better deals? Positioning themselves better for the future? or that sales are brisk, and easy?
The charts show prices at 2005 levels which was the start of the peak. Essentially today’s pricing just takes 2006, 2007 out of the equation.
The next things are the people who bought during the tax credit, and these historically low interest rates. These are artificial benefits to the Real Estate market place.
It makes no sense that buyers would be jumping at property. There’s nothing here that would indicate this is a good time to buy. Where are the economic factors? where’s the inflation of prices? Where’s the rational that this would be the “best buying opportunity,” she has witnessed in nearly 20 years.
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Everyone Has a Prediction on Housing
But separating it from the economy and labor market size freezing can impact results positively. Ignorance is bliss.
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“One broker remarked now is the “best buying opportunity,” she has witnessed in nearly 20 years.”
Was that broker named Harry Reid ?
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RE: Passed Doo @ 3 – no I think it was Mitt when he was in London talking about the games.
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RE: interested @ 4
Mitt = Speaking the truth with absolutely zero nuance or respect.
Harry = Making stuff up out of thin air.
Both are complete tools, but I’d say Passed Doodie has it closer.
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RE: David Losh @ 1 –
There has never been a time when brokers have not said ” This is the best buying opportunity.”
Real Estate brokers are salespeople. They’re not going to tell their clients ” Prices are way too high. Why don’t you just shut up and keep renting?”
When prices were astronomically high five years ago, brokers were suggesting that this was a new paradigm, that the days of prices ever going down was over. After the market crashed, brokers were suggesting that we’ve hit bottom, and that you’d better buy a house right now before prices go up again.
Yes, prices are down, and interest rates are at historic lows. If there were also a large selection of houses to buy, there might be something to what she said. But inventory is terrible. Half nice houses in decent neighborhoods still get multiple offers and sell for over list price. That’s not what I call a ” best buying opportunity”, especially when you compare the cost of a mortgage to the cost of monthly rent for the same house. In the case of the lower tier homes, mortgages are similar and sometimes lower than rent costs, but most people don’t want to live in places south of I-90 or up in Everett, where they’re sure they’ll get mugged and burglarized and their children will turn into drug dealers and prostitutes.
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By interested @ 4:
I’m glad our elections are based on so many important issues. /sarc
Romney, who obviously knows something about putting on an Olympic event, raised a concern that had been raised in England many times by others, but somehow it becomes an important issue in our political race here.
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By Ira Sacharoff @ 6:
You know the economy is really bad when to get by someone has to be both a drug dealer and a prostitute. On the other hand, that has to be really convenient for the Johns.
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Thats the worst possible situation for sellers then.
It means their artificial schemes to keep prices high by trickling units out is failing and more people are getting bargains despite their scamfest.
Soon SHTF and the floodgates open.
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