Now that January is behind us, let’s take a look at the local housing market stats for the month. Short story: Somehow the market got even worse for homebuyers. Nearly nothing for sale and still strong competition.
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:
Sales came in a good bit stronger than a year ago, but listings dropped to another new all-time lows in both counties. Foreclosures are still at their historic lows.
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 23 percent between December and January (a year ago they fell 36 percent over the same period), but were up 19 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 18 percent month-over-month (vs. a 34 percent decrease in the same period last year) and were up 18 percent from January 2016.
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 44 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were down 34 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 24 percent from a year ago. Still basically bouncing along the bottom.
Lastly, here’s an update of the inventory charts, updated with previous months’ inventory data from the NWMLS.
Inventory fell 12 percent between December and January in King County, and was down 24 percent from a year ago.
In Snohomish County it was the same story: Listings down 10 percent month-over-month and down 27 percent year-over-year.
Record low levels for both counties.
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.