Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

also seeing #4.

Seem to be getting to #5 as slope of the price change looks pretty flat, and the trend on the annual changes looks suspiciously like the national chart 8-10 months lagged.

Here are two more indicators for you:

Condo Conversions (and later Condo reversions)
Massive increase in local housing starts (and crane rentals)

1) - Decrease in Sales

Yes..sales are lower then the boom years but still among the hottest on record.

KC RES sales March 2007: 2710

Much slower in previous years:

KC RES sales March 2002: 2247
KC RES sales March 2001: 2187
KC RES sales March 2000: 2373

2) - Increase in inventory

Again....more to choose from then 2005/2006, but still very tight historically.

March 2007 KC RES: 6762

But look back at March 2004: 7326

Or March 2003: 8665

And if you go back to the early 90s it was over double!


3) - Increase in foreclosures

Foreclosures are only up .7% YOY

4) - Increase in the "days on market"

This is up...but not alarmingly so.

5) - No increase in the median price

Prices are up 12% YOY


CONCLUSION: Seattle is still showing all the signs of a healthy, expanding market.

With respect to #5 "No increase in median price" - Remember that median price statistics can be misleading. Depending on the data mix, home prices could actually be declining while the median price statistic indicates an increase. The link below provides a good example on how this can happen.