Now that the month of May is behind us, let’s 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: Inventory rose for the second month in a row, even as sales increased again. Meanwhile, foreclosures are still slowly but surely decreasing toward historically normal levels.
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 15% from March to April, and were up 28% year-over-year, which is a slightly larger year-over-year gain than in April.
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 rose 8% month-over-month and 26% from May 2012.
Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:
Foreclosures in King County fell again, and were only barely above last year’s level. Foreclosures increased slightly in Snohomish County, but are still at their second-lowest level in the last 11 months.
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 to their second-lowest level of the year, but still well above last year.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with the inventory data from the NWMLS.
More good news for buyers. Last year King County inventory rose 2.3% between April and May. This year it rose a whopping 15.6%. Similar story in Snohomish County: last year listings fell 3.1%, this year they were up 6.0%. The year-over-year drop in King County inventory was at its smallest level in 17 months.
Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.