Now that March is in the rear view mirror, it’s time for another new stats preview. 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:
We backed off of the big year-over-year surge we saw last month, turning in just a 6.3% gain from March 2011 to March 2012.
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.
Snohomish actually fell between 2011 and 2012, but as you’ll see in a moment when we look at King County Trustee Deeds, the dip in deeds in Snohomish was probably due to a decrease in foreclosure sales (back to the bank) rather than regular resales.
Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:
Both counties surged in March, hitting their highest points since last September. With three months in a row of increasing foreclosure notices, I think it’s safe to say that we’re on a renewed upward trend.
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.”
Actual foreclosure repossessions dropped to their lowest point in years, which is completely predictable since Trustee Deeds tend to track Notices of Trustee Sale on a three to six month delay, and NTSes were at low points three to six months ago.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with the inventory data from the NWMLS.
I keep thinking eventually we’ll see a “spring bounce” in inventory, but it keeps not happening. How long can inventory keep falling like this?
Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.