July market stats were just published by the NWMLS. They haven’t posted their press release online yet, but when they do it will be here.
By tomorrow their press release will be live, so we’ll save it for the reporting roundup. For now let’s get to the stats.
NWMLS monthly reports include an undisclosed and varying number of
sales from previous months in their pending and closed sales statistics.
Here’s your King County SFH summary, with the arrows to show whether the year-over-year direction of each indicator is favorable or unfavorable news for buyers and sellers (green = favorable, red = unfavorable):
| July 2011 | Number | MOM | YOY | Buyers | Sellers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Listings | 8,186 | +0.1% | -21.8% |  |
 |
| Closed Sales | 1,678 | -10.9% | +13.8% | |
|
| SAAS (?) | 1.78 | +6.9% | -22.7% | |
|
| Pending Sales | 2,297 | -3.8% | +33.9% | |
|
| Months of Supply | 3.56 | +4.0% | -41.6% | |
|
| Median Price* | $350,000 | +1.4% | -12.5% | |
|
Feel free to download the updated Seattle Bubble Spreadsheet (Excel 2003 format), but keep in mind the caution above.
Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:
Interestingly, even if you throw out the big post tax credit drop from last year, this July still had the second-largest dropoff from June on record. This year’s 10.9% month to month dip in closed sales was surpassed only by the 11.6% drop in 2006 and last year’s 21.6% drop. The average drop from June to July between 2000 and 2009 was just 1.5%, so this 10.9% drop is rather unusual.
Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.
Same boring story on inventory. Flat, flat, flat.
Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. In place of the now-unreliable measure of pending sales, the “demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade.
Big shot up for sales, but this is because last year they fell off so strongly after the tax credit expired, so nothing really worth getting excited about.
Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:
Last year after the tax credit expired, the decreased number of sales that did close in July tended to skew a bit on the high end, which boosted the median price by nearly $17k. This year’s $5k bump between June and July was weak in comparison, thus pushing the year over year price drop back into double digit territory.
And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994.
July 2011: $350,000
April 2005: $355,000
Here are the headlines from the Seattle Times and the Seattle P-I. Check back tomorrow for the full reporting roundup.
Seattle Times: Region’s home sales up from last year, but prices down
Seattle P-I: Home sales rise, but price drops accelerate