It’s time yet again to check in on our monthly stats preview for King and Snohomish counties. Most of the charts below are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public 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.
First up, total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:
A pretty big drop from a year ago is expected, since last year’s sales were being juiced by the tax credit. What isn’t exepected though is a drop from March. Usually sales tend to increase through the spring, so this is rather surprising.
Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.
Same trend as King County. Down month-to-month and down from last year (for the first time in 2011).
Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:
Both counties saw a pretty decent drop from month-to-month and year-to-year. It will be interesting to keep an eye on this to see if the trend of softening foreclosures continues.
Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, 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.”
Although initial notices are down from 2010, actual repossessions keep rising from 2010’s levels.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with the inventory data from the NWMLS.
Same story we’ve seen all year. Flat inventory when we usually see a steady rise.
Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.