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With November in the books, let’s have a look at all of our early indicators for the month.
It’s pretty much the same story as last month: Home sales volume was down considerably from a year ago and the number of homes on the market is up dramatically, nearly doubling from a year ago. Foreclosures are still very rare, although the number of notices did tick up a bit month-over-month.
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:
First up, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.
The number of homes on the market in King County dropped 19 percent from October to November. Year-over-year listings are soaring, and up 111 percent from November 2017, another new all-time high year-over-year gain, easily besting the record of 86 percent that was set just a month earlier.
In Snohomish County inventory fell month-over-month 15 percent, and the year-over-year growth also hit a new all-time record, growing 87 percent.
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 15 percent between October and November (a year ago they fell 8 percent over the same period), and were down 22 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 10 percent month-over-month (versus a 14 percent decline in the same period last year) and were down 15 percent from a year earlier.
Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.
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 up 27 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were up 8 percent from last year. Since the numbers are so low, these increases appear large in percentage terms, but in King County the increase represents just 20 additional 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.”
Trustee Deeds were down 52 percent from a year ago, to the lowest level since October 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.