Around the Sound: Still a dismal market for buyers everywhere

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Let’s take a look at our stats for the local regions outside of the King/Snohomish core. Here’s your October update to our “Around the Sound” statistics for Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Island, Skagit, and Whatcom counties.

Things are looking pretty similar all around the Puget Sound region—extremely low supply, high demand, and skyrocketing prices. The one tiny bright spot for buyers is that new listings are higher than they were a year ago in every county.

First up, a summary table:

October 2020 King Snohomish Pierce Kitsap Thurston Island Skagit Whatcom
Median Price $745,000 $579,972 $430,000 $437,000 $395,000 $449,000 $441,500 $474,450
Price YOY 12.9% 17.2% 17.8% 13.2% 13.4% 24.7% 17.6% 13.2%
New Listings 2,986 1,309 1,512 472 492 173 197 320
New Listings YOY 29.7% 20.6% 23.1% 27.9% 21.8% 29.1% 4.2% 4.9%
Active Listings 2,258 652 881 280 217 122 188 323
Active YOY -37.6% -59.2% -46.6% -42.5% -54.4% -60.3% -44.9% -51.4%
Pending Sales 3,007 1,403 1,658 524 549 182 219 331
Pending YOY 16.0% 12.4% 11.2% 10.3% 11.8% 16.7% -0.5% 2.2%
Closed Sales 3,027 1,438 1,520 527 522 179 232 344
Closed YOY 36.0% 36.0% 18.0% 28.9% 15.0% 32.6% 22.1% 19.0%
Months of Supply 0.7 0.5 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.7 0.8 0.9

Median home prices were up in every single county from a year earlier. King County’s 13 percent increase was actually the smallest around the sound, while the largest price gains were in Island County.

Median Sale Price Single-Family Homes

Year-Over-Year Change in Median Sale Price Single-Family Homes

Here’s the one sort-of bright spot for buyers: New listings are on the rise, especially in King County.

New Listings of Single-Family Homes

However, active listings are down dramatically from a year ago in every county. The biggest decline was in Island County (probably no surprise then that prices are up the most there), where listings fell by 60 percent from a year earlier. King County saw the smallest drop, but was still down 38 percent.

Active Listings of Single-Family Homes

Closed sales were up across the board in every single county. The biggest gains were in King and Snohomish Counties, which both saw closed sales increase 36 percent from a year ago. Pierce and Thurston had the smallest gains at 18 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

Closed Sales of Single-Family Homes

Months of supply is just absolutely abysmal for buyers everywhere. Every single county less than one month of supply in October.

Months of Supply Single Family Homes

In summary: It’s still a pretty terrible time to be a home buyer, across the entire Greater Seattle Area.

If there is certain data you would like to see or ways you would like to see the data presented differently, drop a comment below and let me know.

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About The Tim

Tim Ellis is the founder of Seattle Bubble. His background in engineering and computer / internet technology, a fondness of data-based analysis of problems, and an addiction to spreadsheets all influence his perspective on the Seattle-area real estate market. Tim also hosts the weekly improv comedy sci-fi podcast Dispatches from the Multiverse.