Let’s take an updated look at how King County’s sales are shifting between the different regions around the county, since geographic shifts can and do affect the median price.
In order to explore this concept, we break King County down into three regions, based on the NWMLS-defined “areas”:
- low end: South County (areas 100-130 & 300-360)
- mid range: Seattle / North County (areas 140, 380-390, & 700-800)
- high end: Eastside (areas 500-600)
Here’s where each region’s median prices came in as of November data:
- low end: $180,000—$292,450
- mid range: $295,000—$693,350
- high end: $440,000—$1,195,000
First up, let’s have a look at each region’s (approximate) median price (actually the median of the medians for each area within the region).
We’ve got a slow climb over the last few months in the low end regions, a decent bump up in the mid range, and a slight decline in the high end.
Next up, the percentage of each month’s closed sales that took place in each of the three regions. The dotted line is a four-month rolling average.
This chart has become somewhat of a mess in recent months as all three regions converge on the middle. As of November 2012, 32.5% of sales were in the low end regions, 33.9% in the mid range, and 33.6% in the high end. A year ago the low end made up 37.5% of the sales, the mid range was 29.3%, and the high end was 33.3%, so there has been a definite dropoff in the low end regions over the last year, with the slack being picked up mostly in Seattle and north Seattle.
Lastly, here’s an updated look at this same set of data all the way back through 2000:
It’s interesting how closely the big moves up in the median price this year correlate to the big moves down in the share of homes that are being sold in south King. Go figure: When you sell fewer cheap homes, the median price increases.