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July Stats Preview: The 2018 Listings Surge Continues

Posted on August 2, 2018 by The Tim

Remember, you can always get access to the Seattle Bubble spreadsheets by supporting my ongoing work as a member of Seattle Bubble.

The 2018 listings surge continued in July, with on-market single-family inventory hitting its highest level since October 2013.

Here’s the overall summary for July: Sales fell both month-over-month and year-over-year. Listings shot up yet again. Foreclosures are still at all-time lows.

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

Since it is still the most interesting thing going on in the market today, let’s start with an update of the inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

King County SFH Active Listings

Snohomish County SFH Active Listings

The number of homes on the market in King County rose twelve percent from June to July. Year-over-year listings were up 44 percent from July 2017, which is the largest year-over-year listings increase since April 2008.

In Snohomish County the month-over-month inventory increase was smaller at nine percent, and the year-over-year growth was fourteen percent.

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 fell eight percent between June and July (a year ago they fell eleven percent over the same period), and were down nine percent year-over-year.

If I’m a hopeful home buyer, I’m definitely encouraged by the trend over the last few months, even if the market is still pretty tight right now. At least things are moving in a more favorable direction.

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 dropped nine percent month-over-month (about the same as the same period last year) and were down six percent from a year earlier.

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 twenty-six percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were down thirty-eight 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.”

King County Trustee Deeds

Trustee Deeds were down fifty-six percent from a year ago. The only time there have been fewer trustee deeds than we’ve seen over the last few months was late 2003.

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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NWMLS: Listings surge as sales and prices soften a bit
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NWMLS: Prices retreat slightly as inventory continues to climb

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