The big news in this month’s numbers is yet again the big bump in total on-market inventory. That said, prices look like they’re beginning to soften as well, which is unusual for what is normally the hottest time of year for price gains.
Inventory rose twenty-eight percent from May to June, and was up forty-three percent from last year. We’re definitely forming an interesting trend now. This year has seen listings building up a lot faster than any recent year. Meanwhile, sales are softening…
Last month we noticed a big surge in listings in King County in our preview data for May, and in June it looks like the trend is getting stronger. On-market listings of single-family homes nearly hit their highest point in four years in June, surging 28 percent in a single month.
The overall summary for June is that sales edged up from May, but saw the biggest year-over-year decline since April 2011. Listings shot up and are starting to form a very interesting trend. Foreclosures are still few and far between.
Let’s have a look at the latest data from the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to April data that was released last week, Seattle-area home prices were:
Up 2.7 percent March to April
Up 13.1 percent year-over-year.
Up 30.8 percent from the July 2007 peak
Over the same period last year prices were up 2.6 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were up 12.9 percent.
Seattle still leads the nation in both year-over-year and month-over-month home price growth. Seattle has had the highest year-over-year price growth since September 2016. The only other metro areas with double-digit price growth from a year earlier in April were Las Vegas at 12.7 percent and San Francisco at 10.9 percent.
We know that inventory is growing in King County, but let’s look at broader Puget Sound area. Now that May is over, let’s update our “Around the Sound” statistics for King, Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Island, Skagit, and Whatcom counties.
The biggest gains in new listings and active inventory were in King County. Snohomish and Pierce also saw some decent increases, but further out it’s more of a mixed bag, with some counties still seeing declining listings and inventory.
May market stats have been published by the NWMLS, but their press release isn’t out yet, so let’s just dive into the numbers.
The big news in this month’s numbers is the big bump in both new listings and total on-market inventory. The last time we had more than 4,000 new single-family listings in a single month in King County was July 2007.
Yes, it has been over a month since the last update here. What is there to say when the market is the same frenzied nonsense day after day, week after week, month after month? It’s exhausting, and I’m not even in the market to buy a home. If you are, you definitely have my pity.
Even when I’m not posting here, I am still keeping my spreadsheets up to date and sharing them with those who support my ongoing work as members of Seattle Bubble.
Anyway, I’m back because there’s something definitely interesting in our regular monthly “preview” charts for May. Unless something has really broken in my data collection, it looks like we’re seeing a sudden surge of listings begin to pile up.
Let’s have a look at the latest data from the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to February data that was released this morning, Seattle-area home prices were:
Up 1.7 percent January to February
Up 12.7 percent year-over-year.
Up 23.9 percent from the July 2007 peak
Over the same period last year prices were up 1.8 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were up 12.1 percent.
Seattle leads the nation in both year-over-year and month-over-month home price growth. The only other metro areas with double-digit price growth from a year earlier are Las Vegas at 11.6 percent and San Francisco at 10.1 percent.