September brought some good-ish news for potential homebuyers. During a time of year that the number of homes on the market typically begins to decline, King County and Snohomish County each saw listings increase slightly from the previous month. We’re still far from a buyer’s market, but it’s a bit of a surprising turn.
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:
While inventory increased slightly, sales still came in strong, beating last year’s September levels in both counties but sharply declining from August. Foreclosures also remain near their all-time low 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 fell 11 percent between August and September (a year ago they fell 3 percent over the same period), and were up just 3 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 fell 7 percent month-over-month (vs. a 1 percent increase in the same period last year) and were up 8 percent from September 2015.
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 40 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were down 38 percent from last year.
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 36 percent from a year ago.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with previous months’ inventory data from the NWMLS.
Inventory rose 6 percent between August and September in King County, and was also up 6 percent from a year ago. Most years the number of homes on the market falls between August and September. The last time that number rose more than five percent between August and September was 2005 through 2007—the peak of the previous housing bubble. This is just a single month of data though, so it’s too early to read anything into it.
In Snohomish County it was the same story between August and September: Listings up 6 percent month-over-month. However, in Snohomish they were still down 12 percent from a year ago. The only other time listings have risen more than five percent between August and September in Snohomish County was 2006, when they were up 7 percent over that period.
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.