{"id":103541,"date":"2016-01-07T09:02:39","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T17:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?p=103541"},"modified":"2016-01-07T09:03:30","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T17:03:30","slug":"nwmls-2015-worst-year-ever-home-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/07\/nwmls-2015-worst-year-ever-home-buyers\/","title":{"rendered":"NWMLS: 2015 Was the Worst Year Ever for Home Buyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get access to the full spreadsheets used to make the charts in this and other posts, as well as a variety of additional insider benefits by becoming a member of Seattle Bubble<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

December market stats were published by the NWMLS yesterday. Before we get into our monthly stats, here’s a quick look at their press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Puget Sound area home sales, prices still strong<\/strong>
\nHome prices have “clearly recovered” in King County and a few other areas served by Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Many member-brokers say prices are likely to keep rising as a backlog of buyers competes for depleted inventory.
\n…
\nThe price of a single family home (excluding condos) that sold in King County during December jumped nearly 15.5 percent, from $440,000 to $508,000, prompting OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate to comment, “If December told us one thing, it’s that home prices have clearly recovered in King County. Last month the median price for single family homes broke the pre-recession record of $481,000 that was set in July 2007.”<\/p>\n

Another industry leader, J. Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott, noted the 9.2 percent drop in King County’s pending sales during December, saying “The only reason pending sales dropped in King County was due to a lack of inventory.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He knows that it is the only reason because he personally interviewed each and every potential homebuyer who backed out of the market. One hundred percent of them cited inventory. Certainly nobody was concerned about prices rising too quickly or the potential that we are in another housing bubble, fueled by an overheated tech industry.<\/p>\n

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CAUTION<\/div>\n

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NWMLS monthly reports include an undisclosed and varying number<\/a> of
sales from previous months in their pending and closed sales statistics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Here’s your King County SFH summary, with the arrows to show whether the year-over-year direction of each indicator is favorable or unfavorable news for buyers and sellers (green = favorable, red = unfavorable):<\/p>\n