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WCRER: Sales Slipping, Affordability Tanking

Posted on August 23, 2006 by The Tim

As a number of readers have pointed out in the comments, WSU’s Washington Center for Real Estate Research has released their latest quarterly statistics. There’s not much new in there for anyone that has been following the monthly NWMLS releases, but it’s at least worth mentioning. Here’s a blurb from the Associated Press report, courtesy of the Everett Herald.

Among Washington’s largest counties, King County sales declined 13.7 percent, Pierce County slipped 10.7 percent, Snohomish County slid 11.8 percent, and Spokane County declined 11.9 percent.

The sharpest declines were seen in Island and Jefferson counties, each of which experienced nearly a 33 percent dip in sales.

Only three counties – Yakima, Thurston and Grant – reported modest increases in the number of homes sold.

But prices continued to increase across the state, though at a slower rate.

Here is an updated version of my graph of WCRER’s numbers for King County.

King County Affordability
Click to enlarge

The Affordability Index (refer to my previous post for the definition) for King County continued its descent, down almost 7 more points to 70.4—the largest drop in the index in two years. One thing that is interesting is that rather than reporting inventory (# of homes on the market), the snapshot includes the number of units for which building permits have been issued. Although that measure was up just 6.7% statewide, King County had an astounding 4,217 units for which permits were issued last quarter, up 43.2% from last year. Remember that King County is already in the midst of a trend of increasing inventory and decreasing sales. If supply keeps shooting up (bolstered by increased building) and demand continues to wane, real price drops won’t be far behind.

(WCRER (pdf), 08.2006)
(Associated Press, Everett Herald, 08.21.2006)

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