As we were digging through the February data from the NWMLS, some of us noticed something interesting. While the county-wide median price was basically flat year-over-year, there is a pretty strong divergence from region to region around the county.
Here’s what the YOY median price breakdown looks like at the region level:
SW King: -12.8%
SE King: -11.1%
Seattle: +1.4%
N. King: -17.2%
Eastside: +1.0%
See what I mean? Outside of Seattle proper and the Eastside, median prices still seem to be falling quite fast. Eric Pryne at the Seattle Times noticed this as well, making it the focus of his report last week.
In order to explore this further, I have taken the February data from the NWMLS and plugged it into a Tableau map. Unfortunately, Tableau does not let you draw arbitrary boundary lines, so for the full map of the NWMLS areas with the boundary lines drawn, you’ll have to go here.
Hit the jump for the interactive map.
With just three and six closed sales, Vashon and Mercer Islands saw the most extreme swings in their respective median prices, falling 38% on Vashon and rising a whopping 124% on Mercer. Most of the other neighborhoods around King County fell within a more normal range, with the exception of the Capitol Hill area, where the median shot up over 45%. That could be because last year that area saw just 17 sales in February.
Ten of thirty areas saw YOY gains in their median prices. The average gain among those ten was 22% (skewed high by Mercer), and the median gain was 6.4%.
Of the twenty areas that saw YOY declines in their median price, the average loss was -12.2%, and the median was -13.2%. In other words, in the neighborhoods where prices are still falling, they tend to still be falling pretty fast.