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February Stats Preview: Dead of Winter Edition

Posted on March 3, 2015 by The Tim

With February in the books, let’s have a look at our monthly stats preview. 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 inventory inched up from its January all-time low in King County, but fell further in Snohomish. Meanwhile, sales fell dramatically month-over-month in both counties, as is fairly typical for this time of year. Year-over-year sales were up double digits in King County, but down slightly in Snohomish. Foreclosure notices declined yet again from 2014 in both counties.

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 rose 15 percent between January and February (in 2014 they rose 5 percent over the same period), and were up 11 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.

Snohomish County Deeds

Deeds in Snohomish rose 3 percent month-over-month (vs. a 1 percent decrease in the same period last year) and were down 2 percent from February 2014.

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 down over 20 percent from a year ago, and fell month-over-month as well. King was down 22 percent from last year, and Snohomish fell 29 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 29 percent from a year ago, but up slightly from January.

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

King County SFH Active Listings

Snohomish County SFH Active Listings

Inventory inched up just slightly from January to February in King County. Snohomish county posted another month-over-month decline. King is currently down 14 percent from last year and Snohomish is down 11 percent.

Note that most of the charts above 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.

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: A Mostly Flat December
Previous Post:
NWMLS: Sales and Listings Both Inched Up in February

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