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August Stats Preview: Sales Slippage Edition

Posted on September 2, 2014 by The Tim

With August behind us, 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:

King & Snhomish County Stats Preview

Listings are up 1.5 percent from a year ago in King County and 19 percent in Snohomish. Sales slipped 8 percent from a year ago in King County and 11 percent in Snohomish, both larger dips than a month ago. Foreclosure starts and completions both continued to fall 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:

King County Warranty Deeds

Sales in King County fell 8 percent between July and August (in 2013 they fell 4 percent over the same period), and were down 8 percent year-over-year, the biggest decline in over three years.

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.

Snohomish County Deeds

Deeds in Snohomish fell 6 percent month-over-month (compared to a drop of 4 percent over the same period last year) and were down 11 percent from August 2013.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

King County Notices of Trustee Sale

Snohomish County Notices of Trustee Sale

Foreclosures in both counties were once again down considerably from a year ago, but Month-over-month foreclosures jumped a bit in Snohomish. King was down 44 percent from last year, and Snohomish fell 30 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.”

King County Trustee Deeds

Trustee Deeds were down 46 percent from a year ago and fell month-over-month.

Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with the inventory data from the NWMLS.

King County SFH Active Listings

Snohomish County SFH Active Listings

Year-over-year inventory growth shrank slightly between July and AUgust. King is currently up 1.5 percent from last year, while Snohomish is up 19 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.

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Case-Shiller Tiers: Price Growth Slows Across the Board
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NWMLS: Closed Sales, Median Price Dip in August

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