The NWMLS published their August stats yesterday, so let’s take a look at how the month shook out for the housing market.
As we mentioned in yesterday’s preview post, the biggest story is a sudden, renewed shortage of inventory.
Before we get into our detailed monthly stats, here’s a quick look at their press release…
NWMLS stats for August are due any day now, probably later today, but let’s have a look at our “early” view on the August housing market stats for the Seattle area.
The biggest news: Active listings appear to be down considerably from a year ago. This is a big flip from earlier this year, when listings were way up, and definitely not great news for buyers.
I promised an updated look at June data for the outlying counties, so let’s have a look at that. Here’s the latest update to our “Around the Sound” statistics for King, Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Island, Skagit, and Whatcom counties.
King County is the only place where prices are declining, and it also has the largest increase in active listings compared to a year ago. On the flip side, pending sales were up the most in King County, and it had one of the smallest declines in closed sales (sales rose in Skagit though). In most of the other Puget Sound counties, sales are declining, and listings are either falling or not increasing by much, and prices are rising.
The NWMLS just published their June stats, so let’s take a look at how the month shook out for the housing market. The King County median price of single-family homes was down year-over-year again in June, the fourth month in a row of declines. Inventory was up from a year ago again, but the as we mentioned in the preview post earlier this morning, the rate of increase is rapidly declining from the all-time high set in December. Closed sales were down a bit from a year earlier, while pending sales were up slightly.
This is the last post in today’s data catch-up marathon. I’ll also update a few more of the spreadsheets for members, and if the NWMLS posts their June data today I’ll try to get that up as well.
For now, let’s have a look at our “early” view on June stats.
In summary: Listings are still up from a year ago, but not by as much as they have been. Sales are down, but only just a bit.
Let’s check out the three price tiers for the Seattle area, as measured by Case-Shiller. Remember, Case-Shiller’s “Seattle” data is based on single-family home repeat sales in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.
Year-over-year price growth is falling in all three tiers, with the high tier having flipped to year-over-year losses as of February.
Let’s play a bit of catch-up today with some stats that I’ve allowed to fall behind. First up, the latest Case-Shiller data from a couple weeks ago. According to April data that was released late June, Seattle-area home prices were:
Up 1.1 percent March to April
Up less than 0.1 percent YOY.
Up 30.9 percent from the July 2007 peak
Last year at this time prices were up 2.7 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were up 13.1 percent.