As I’ve been following the other bubble blogs over the past year or so, it has seemed like the housing slowdown is slowly moving from the south to north and east to west, with our state being at the trailing end of market realities. In the recent months, I’ve seen articles first about slowing in San Diego, then LA, then Sacramento, then Portland/Vancouver, and now… Olympia.
The South Sound real estate market is beginning to evolve from a seller’s market to more of a buyer’s market as inventory levels rise and home prices decline, according to Olympic Multiple Listing Service data released Wednesday.
Active home listings in March stood at 1,047, well above the 568 active listings for last March, the data showed.
As a result, the median price of a home dropped slightly from $248,475 in January to $244,575 in March.
"We are seeing some stabilization in pricing based on the inventory in the marketplace," said Olympic MLS Manager Jerry Wilkins.
Still, the March median price of $244,575 was up 22 percent over the same period last year, according to the data.
Of course, "was up 22 percent over the same period last year" sounds a lot better than "is stalled at the same level it was five months ago in October." It will be interesting to see how they spin it if this keeps up for another half a year and the "same period last year" was the same or higher.
(Rolf Boone, The Olympian, 04.06.2006)