We missed posting this on time at the beginning of the month, but by request, we’re going to have a look at our 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, here’s the summary snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:
Summary: Foreclosures dipped, sales inched up from January, while inventory dropped just slightly. Hit the jump for the full suite of our usual monthly charts.
Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:
Sales in King County rose 4.4% from January to February, and were up 19.8% year-over-year.
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.
Deeds in Snohomish fell 10.8% month-over-month and rose 6.2% from February 2012.
Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:
Both counties were still way above where they were at the same time last year, but it’s the smallest year-over-year gain in five months, and a decent drop month-over-month in both counties.
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.”
Trustee Deeds fell month-over-month and were up 31.7% from a year earlier.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with the inventory data from the NWMLS.
Last year King County inventory fell 3.7% between January and February. This year it fell 0.9%. Similar story in Snohomish County, where listings fell 0.7% from January to February.