With October now in the past, 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 continued their typical seasonal descent. Sales rallied slightly in King County, and were flat in Snohomish. Foreclosures were slightly up over September in both counties, but still down from a year ago.
Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:
Sales in King County increased 5 percent between September and October (in 2013 they rose 1.4 percent over the same period), and were up 4 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 were flat month-over-month (basically the same as the same period last year) and were down 2 percent from October 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 down from a year ago yet again, despite a slight month-over-month uptick. King was down 25 percent from last year, and Snohomish fell 32 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 28 percent from a year ago despite a month-over-month increase.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with the inventory data from the NWMLS.
Year-over-year inventory continued to drop in King County, and was still up in Snohomish. King is currently down 3 percent from last year, while Snohomish is up 14 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.