It’s time once again to 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 August data:
- low end: $228,500-$370,000
- mid range: $329,475-$658,000
- high end: $470,000-$1,602,500
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).
The median price in all three tiers fell between August and September. The low tier dropped 3.2% in the month, the middle tier fell 4.9%, and the high tier lost 2.3%. All three tiers are of course still up year-over-year. Low tier: +18.1%, middle tier: +11.8%, high tier: +7.2%.
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.
The share of sales that are taking place in the most expensive parts of the county fell slightly last month, while sales share in the cheap parts of the county increased.
As of September 2013, 31.5% of sales were in the low end regions, 34.2% in the mid range, and 34.3% in the high end. A year ago the low end regions had more of the share and the mid range less: In September 2012 the low end made up 32.5% of the sales, the mid range was 32.0%, and the high end was 35.4%.
Here’s that information in a visual format:
Finally, here’s an updated look at the percentage of sales data all the way back through 2000:
Even after the dip in high tier sales share this month, the expensive regions still had the most sales, which is a relatively rare situation.