Just a quick note to point out the NWMLS has released July stats. Compared to 2006, listings are up 44%, and sales down 8%.
Here’s the link to the NWMLS press release, with a link to the recap pdf (which is no longer directly-linkable).
My brothers are in-town visiting, so I haven’t got the time for the full update tonight, but it will be first on the agenda tomorrow morning, when I’ll come back and update this post. Here is the promised update:
Here’s your King County SFH summary:
July 2007
Active Listings: up 44% YOY
Pending Sales: down 8% YOY
Median Closed Price: $481,000, up 11% YOY
As of July, there have now been 20 of the past 21 months that have clocked in with YOY decreases in pending sales. Inventory has been increasing YOY for 16 months in a row, and has now been at over 20% YOY for a full year. For some perspective on those numbers, consider that since the peak of Seattle’s market activity in March 2005, inventory has nearly doubled, with a total increase of 90%, while sales have dipped a total of 28%.
Median prices spiked over $10,000 from June—an unusual month-to-month jump. Not since the late ’90s has June to July seen that large of a jump. In the past I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the “low end buyers have stopped buying” explanation for an increasing median in Seattle, but I think we may finally be seeing that effect in these latest price statistics. I’ll be looking into this one to see what I can find.
For the second month in a row, months of supply jumped up half a point, coming in at over 4.0 for the first time since the winter of ’02-’03 (and the first time ever for July—since 2000, as far back as I have the metric).
Like some kind of unstoppable robot, carrying out preprogrammed directives, I have uploaded an updated copy of the Seattle Bubble Spreadsheet that contains the relevant data.
Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph:
Here’s the chart of supply and demand raw numbers:
Here’s the graph of YOY percent change in the median sale prices of single-family homes in King County since 1994:
Here are a few links to the local news write-ups. A post centered on these will be up tomorrow.
Elizabeth Rhodes, Seattle Times: Housing prices defy logic, keep climbing
Aubrey Cohen, Seattle P-I: Condos driving the market
Devona Wells, Tacoma News-Tribune: Dream homes, few takers
Mike Benbow, Everett Herald: County housing boom finally fades
Rolf Boone, The Olympian: Sales tepid for homes, condos