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September Stats Preview: The Last Gasp of Inventory in 2017

Posted on October 2, 2017 by The Tim

Let’s take a look at regular monthly “preview” charts. Now that September is in the past let’s take a look at the local housing market stats for the month. Short story: Inventory hit the highest point since a year ago in King County and were just slightly below last month’s high in Snohomish. Sales are still strong, and foreclosures are nearly non-existent.

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 & Snohomish County Stats Preview

Sadly I have nothing particularly new or interesting to share about what happened in the market in September. It’s more of the same cruddy market for buyers: Listings are scarce and sales are still strong.

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 decreased fourteen percent between August and September (a year ago they fell eleven percent over the same period), and were down five 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 decreased thirteen percent month-over-month (vs. a seven percent decrease in the same period last year) and were down two percent from August.

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

Foreclosure notices in King County were down 34 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were down 49 percent from last year. Both counties are still basically at their historic low levels for foreclosures.

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 42 percent from a year ago.

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 rose nine percent between August and September in King County, but was still down 17 percent from a year earlier.

In Snohomish County listings were down just barely month-over-month and down 14 percent year-over-year.

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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