It’s time once again to check in with our local press to see who simply rehashed the NWMLS press release and who did some actual journalism.
First up, the NWMLS press release that accompanied yesterday’s numbers: Inventory shrinking, sales rising, prices stabilizing in some Northwest MLS areas
Waiting longer to buy a home is not likely to pay off, according to Northwest Multiple Listing Service director Kathy Estey after reviewing reports summarizing May activity. Estey pointed to shrinking inventory (about 20 percent fewer listings than a year ago), double-digit increases in the number of pending sales (up 17.7 percent from a year ago), solid open house activity, and signs of stabilizing prices (eight of the 19 counties in the report show price gains since January) as indicators of an improving market.
…
Estey, the managing broker at the Bellevue Downtown office of John L. Scott Real Estate, said affordable homes inventory is down to the levels of a normal market and reaching for a sellers’ market. “Multiple offers are common in the under $400,000 range when the home is priced well, shows nicely and is marketed professionally,” she remarked. “Buyers who are waiting for prices to come down more have missed the bottom,” Estey believes.
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“What we’re currently seeing is real estate’s version of Back to the Future,” said J. Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate. He believes the combination of historically low interest rates, adjusted lower prices, and the $8,000 tax credit has created advantageous conditions for buyers that haven’t been seen in decades. He noted sales in the four-county area continue to see double digit increases.
You heard it here first, folks. You have missed the bottom. Again.
The release also makes mention of an “explanatory note” that is not included online. According to Aubrey Cohen’s article, the note “mention[s] the change in the definition of a pending sale but blam[es] short sales and foreclosures for the “widening gap” between pending sales in one month and closed sales in the next.”
I can’t help but think that the ever-increasing disparity between the NWMLS’ much-touted “pending sales” and the number of actual closed sales is the kind of thing they would much rather not have explained. But with the Times and the P-I both finally making a big deal about this issue (which we have been following here since August), it looks like the NWMLS couldn’t ignore it any longer.
