Here’s a media report on February’s numbers from the Seattle Times, who says that "prices remain buoyant."<\/p>\n
The housing market around Puget Sound has slowed from its blistering pace of a year ago, meaning some sellers don’t get multiple offers and some have to lower their prices.<\/p>\n
But prices remain buoyant, with the median sales price for a single-family home in King County last month climbing to $392,950, up 14.7 percent from February 2005, according to numbers released Monday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
…
Sellers can no longer count on numerous offers for properties with high price tags, but buyers are not calling the shots either.<\/p>\n"It’s more balanced than it was last year, but it’s not a buyer’s market by any stretch of the imagination," said Mike Grady, president of Coldwell Banker Bain, which has 19 offices around Central Puget Sound.<\/p>\n
The market is taking longer to ramp up this year, Grady said. People are slower to put homes on the market, partly because of bad weather and distractions from the Super Bowl and the Olympics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Of course!<\/i> In January it was football<\/a>, now it’s the Olympics! Perfectly logical explanations for why the home sales are "taking longer to ramp up." Right.<\/p>\n
(Melissa Allison, Seattle Times<\/a>, 03.07.2006<\/i>)<\/p>\n