It’s time for NWMLS June statistics.
Here’s the NWMLS press release: Housing Market Becoming More Balanced as Sales Climb to Highest Level in 10 Months.
Here is your summary along with the usual graphs and other updates.
Here’s your King County SFH summary:
June 2008
Active Listings: up 25% YOY
Pending Sales: down 27% YOY
Median Closed Price*: $449,700 – down 4.3% YOY
Here is the updated Seattle Bubble Spreadsheet, and here’s a copy in Excel 2003 format. Click below for the graphs and the rest of the post.
Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.
The only other year we have detailed data for in which inventory dropped from May to June was 2003, when May was the peak. Has inventory finally peaked? Time will tell, but I think it probably still has a little ways yet to climb.
Pending sales also moved in the opposite direction from their usual pattern in June, jumping up noticably. However, this still was not enough of a boost to keep last month from having the fewest sales of any June on record.
Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph.
Some moderation on the inventory front, but sales are still in the gutter.
Here’s the chart of supply and demand raw numbers:
Months of supply dropped slighly, but stayed above 6.0, making June the tenth straight month of a “buyer’s market” in King County SFH.
Here’s the SFH Median YOY change graph.
We’ve already had a number of little upward spikes in appreciation during this rapid ride to price drops, and until we see what happens through the rest of the summer, we can’t say whether that little upward tick at the end is just more noise on the way down.
Was May the bottom for the local housing market? I doubt it, but I fully expect that these slightly positive numbers will bring all kinds of bottom-calling spin out of the woodwork.
Here are an excerpt from the blurb in the Seattle Times: Puget Sound home prices fall 6% in June
Getting move-up buyers to actually commit is a challenge, says Windermere agent Tim Lenihan.
“They’re the hardest to convince to move because they’ve lost so much equity,” Lenihan says. “I tell them it’s all relative. The house they want to buy is also down. But they’re waiting a few more months to see what happens.”
Meanwhile some buyers are waiting to see if prices fall more. John L. Scott agent Michael Orbino says he tells them that even a small uptick in mortgage rates could wipe out any sticker-price savings.
Nothing like a little bit of fear-mongering to move your product.
The Seattle P-I blurb just quotes the numbers: Value of houses in county down from 2007