With February now complete, let’s have a look at our monthly 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 snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:
Listings were once again up in both counties, much more in Snohomish than in King. Sales fell slightly from last year’s levels in both counties again as well. Foreclosure starts and completions both continued to drop.
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 4.7 percent between January and February (in 2013 they rose 4.4 percent over the same period), and were down 1.7 percent year-over-year. Basically the same trends we saw in January.
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 0.7 percent month-over-month and were down 1.3 percent from February 2013.
Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:
Foreclosures in both counties were yet again down about 50 percent from a year ago. Month-over-month foreclosures fell in both Snohomish and King. King was down 53 percent from last year, and Snohomish fell 49 percent.
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 were down 34 percent from a year ago, and hit their lowest point since April 2012.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with the inventory data from the NWMLS.
Very little month-over-month change in inventory in either county. Snohomish continues to post far larger year-over-year gains than King.
Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.