March market stats were published by the NWMLS yesterday. Here’s a snippet from their press release: NWMLS brokers report mixed results for March, but suggest only lack of inventory is holding back sales.
Northwest Multiple Listing Service brokers reported rising prices on fewer sales during March compared to a year ago, citing inventory shortages as the main reason.
…
“The only thing holding back sales is the lack of inventory,” said John Deely, a member of the Northwest MLS board of directors. He said one recent listing priced at a fair market value drew more than 40 offers. “The depth of buyer demand appears to have no bottom in the most popular price ranges,” added Deely, the principal managing broker at Coldwell Banker Bain in Seattle.
…
Commenting on March activity, OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate, said he expects market conditions of low inventory, strong competition among buyers, steadily rising prices – and rising rents – will continue in the foreseeable future. “Rents are on the rise, and when this happens, there’s often a shift where people get priced out of the rental market and move into home ownership. This leads to more demand for homes and upward pressure on prices,” he stated.
I guess OB Jacobi somehow missed the stories about overbuilding in the rental market and that rents are predicted to stabilize or decline this year. So much for that upward pressure.
On with our usual monthly stats.
NWMLS monthly reports include an undisclosed and varying number of
sales from previous months in their pending and closed sales statistics.
Here’s your King County SFH summary, with the arrows to show whether the year-over-year direction of each indicator is favorable or unfavorable news for buyers and sellers (green = favorable, red = unfavorable):
| March 2014 | Number | MOM | YOY | Buyers | Sellers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Listings | 3,258 | +2.7% | +9.6% |  |
 |
| Closed Sales | 1,772 | +42.8% | -2.9% | |
|
| SAAS (?) | 1.41 | +1.4% | +3.4% | |
|
| Pending Sales | 2,784 | +29.2% | -5.2% | |
|
| Months of Supply | 1.84 | -28.1% | +12.9% | |
|
| Median Price* | $414,950 | +2.4% | +5.9% | |
|
Feel free to download the updated Seattle Bubble Spreadsheet (Excel 2003 format), but keep in mind the caution above.
Prices rose month-over-month, but saw their smallest year-over-year increase since May of 2012. Both pending and closed sales continued to fall from a year ago, while inventory was up nearly 10 percent. Here’s some perspective on the month-over-month price increase.
Median Price February to March 2013: +7.4%
Median Price February to March 2014: +2.4%
Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:
March home sales came in slightly below last year, for the third year-over-year decline in a row.
Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.
Still at near-record low inventory levels, but the increase is encouraging.
Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).
Still trending very slowly closer to a buyer’s market, with the supply trend in the black, and the demand trend in the red. We’ll still need a lot more movement than this before the market actually becomes a buyer’s market.
Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:
The median sale price inched down some more in February and year-over-year number dipped.
And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).
March 2014: $414,950
April 2006: $419,500
Here are the articles from the Seattle Times and P-I:
Seattle Times: Home price rising more slowly, but for-sale signs remain scarce
Seattle P-I: Home inventory, sales fell in March
Check back later today for the full reporting roundup.