With the books on April now closed, 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 are still climbing from a year ago in both counties, still much more in Snohomish than in King. It does look like inventory in King County may finally hit double-digit gains. Sales fell from last year’s levels in both counties again as well, although the drop was much smaller in King County. Foreclosure starts and completions both continued to drop from last year’s 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 20 percent between March and April (in 2013 they rose 14 percent over the same period), but were down 1.1 percent 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 rose 11 percent month-over-month but were down 10 percent from April 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 are still down considerably from a year ago. Month-over-month foreclosures rose just slightly in King County, but fell in Snohomish. King was down 41 percent from last year, and Snohomish fell 53 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 43 percent from a year ago, but increased a bit from last month.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with the inventory data from the NWMLS.
A double-digit gain in just one month in King County bodes well for buyers hoping that this year may yet have some decent inventory. King is currently up 11 percent from last year, while Snohomish is up 48 percent.
Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.