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With July officially in the books, let’s have our first look at how the month’s real estate stats stack up. 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:
It seems like buyers in King County may have finally had enough. Sales dropped considerabily from June to July, and were down year-over-year, while inventory jumped double digits month-over-month for the second month in a row, coming within a few homes of break-even for the year. Snohomish County was a different story, with sales up year-over-year and inventory still way down.
Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:
Sales in King County fell 10 percent between June and July (a year ago they fell 2 percent over the same period), and were down 6 percent year-over-year. The last time we had a double-digit drop in sales between June and July was 2011.
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 fell 1 percent month-over-month (roughly the same as that period last year) and were up 3 percent from July 2015. The July sales level was only slightly below the all-time record set in June.
Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:
Foreclosure notices in King County were down 25 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were up 6 percent from last year. Notices in both counties are still in the low end of the typical “normal” market range.
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 25 percent from a year ago.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with previous months’ inventory data from the NWMLS.
Active listing inventory was up 12 percent month-over-month, and down less than one percent from a year ago in King County. Snohomish County inventory was up 9 percent month-over-month and down 22 percent from a year ago.
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.