Now that March is behind us, let’s have a look at our monthly stats preview. Most of the charts below are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County Records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the “preview,” drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.
Here’s your preview of March’s foreclosure and home sale stats:
First up, total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with the county:
Warranty Deeds shot up over 55% from February, and over 55% from March last year. I suspect we will see between 1,200 and 1,500 closed sales this month, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we get close to 2,000 in one of the next three months before the tax credit expires. After that, we’ll probably see a notable drop.
Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:
That was a short-lived stint in the negative year-over-year territory. Spiking hard, foreclosures shot up 24% from last year, and 87% from the prior month. Yow. It will be interesting to see if this is a new wave or just a one-month spike.
Here’s another measure of foreclosures, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”
Actual completed foreclosures posted another stronger YOY gain, increasing 67% from 2009.
Lastly, here’s an approximate guess at where the month-end inventory was, based on our sidebar inventory tracker (powered by Estately):
Getting closer and closer to flat year-over-year.
Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.