The good news: This is down from an eye-watering $4,758 in October.
The bad news: This is up dramatically from just a year prior, and 59% higher than what we saw at the peak of the previous housing bubble.

Even if you adjust the July 2007 peak payment for inflation, it only comes out to about $3,586 in 2023 dollars, meaning that the October 2022 peak was 34% higher, and as of February homebuyers are still looking at payments 10% above the highest level recorded before the last housing bubble burst.

I don’t have a lot of commentary to add to this, just to say that this is clearly not sustainable, and in my opinion it’s not mortgage rates that need to come back down, it’s home prices.

The post Homebuyers are taking on monthly payments 59% higher than at the 2007 peak of the previous housing bubble. appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Here’s a look at the median home sale price for King County:

As you can see, not only are home prices down year over year (7%), but they’re also down 20% from the May peak, and with another month of flat prices, will be down from 2021 levels, as well. This is great news, of course it is entirely offset by the surge in mortgage rates that had been held artificially low for over a decade back to a more typical level over 6%.

Here’s how the Seattle area stacks up to the rest of the nation, according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index:

So far just Seattle and San Francisco are seeing year-over-year declines in home prices according to Case-Shiller. And the declines we’re seeing in Seattle are nothing to sneeze at, either. Have a look at the month-over-month change in Seattle’s HPI:

That drop from nearly a 6% monthly increase in March of last year to a 4% monthly decrease by August is the steepest turnaround we’ve ever seen. Right now the declines are larger than any time since 2011 and 2008.

Regarding those mortgage rates we mentioned earlier, here’s a chart of weekly rates and the Mortgage Banker’s Association Purchase Index, which is a good indicator of early home-buying demand:

Ever since around 2019 there has been a pretty tight inverse correlation between mortgage rates and demand. When rates dropped between 2019 and 2021, demand surged. As rates have climbed through 2022 and into 2023, demand has dropped into the gutter. Personally I don’t see homebuying demand increasing much at all as long as mortgage rates stay above 6%.

Of course, high rates are suppressing listings as well. New listings are at their lowest levels ever:

But since demand is being hit even harder, months of supply is actually creeping up all throughout the Puget Sound region:

For me the bottom line in all of this is affordability. Here’s a look at that chart:

That’s rough. Even with the 20% decline in home prices since last May, surging mortgage rates have kept the affordability index close to the 2007 low. In my opinion, we still have a long way to go in this correction. I don’t know exactly how it’s going to play out, but I don’t think this kind of terrible affordability is sustainable in the long term for Seattle.

If you’re a Seattle Bubble Member, the full data for these charts and more are uploaded to the members-only data repository.

Want to join a conversation about this or other local real estate topics? We’re on Twitter (for now) at @SeattleBubble.

P.S. – For anyone following along at home, I am no longer employed by Redfin. My job was eliminated in the November layoff.

The post Home prices are finally falling around Seattle—more than most places in the nation appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Or a few years later in 2013 when 4% mortgage rates were widely described as “soaring”?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Mortgage rates have been a frequent topic of discussion on these pages over the years since they have such a large impact on the housing market. Here are a few of our headlines over the years…

April 2012: Will Higher Interest Rates Kill the Housing Market?

September 2015: Affordability Will Be Destroyed if Interest Rates Increase

September 2020: Plunging mortgage rates held off a Seattle home price crash

Ten years ago I said that “eventually rates will climb back up above six percent” but that I didn’t expect it to happen “for at least another four years.” Even the timeline of that prediction was far too short, but to be fair it was in a post titled People Stink at Predicting Interest Rates and people includes this guy.

In my opinion, the absurdly low mortgage rates of the past 10+ years have basically held the housing market in a perpetual state of artificial demand inflation. The Federal Reserve has been the drug dealer, continuallly supplying the market with cocaine in increasingly higher doses while we all just kept coming back for more every time we saw the slightest hint that we may be coming down off that high.

But now, after more than a decade of rates under 5%, we’re finally going to see how a more “normal” mortgage rate will impact the housing market. It’s finally time to detox, and we don’t get to come down easy—we’re going cold turkey.

To try to get some idea of what this might look like, it may be informative to review the 2010 post Do Rising Interest Rates Lead to Falling Home Prices? Here’s the tl;dr – Yes, there have been times when a spike in mortgage rates led to a decline in inflation-adjusted home prices. Most notably the period between 1979 and 1985, when rates shot up nine points and inflation-adjusted home prices fell 20%.

A lot of factors are different now than they were in the early ’80s. For one thing, home prices going into that period were not obscenely inflated the way they are now. Our current situation is also very different from 2008, when far too many homebuyers were leveraged to the hilt with liar loans and interest-only mortgages that they could only “afford” if prices kept rising in perpetuity. It’s impossible to predict exactly what the coming housing recession will look like, but I am fairly confident that real home prices will not be able to remain at the astronomical heights they have climbed to over the past few years with mortgage rates back above 6%.

We are already seeing a lot of weeping & gnashing of teeth about “high mortgage rates” and the Fed “killing the housing market” but in my opinion the mistake was holding rates so absurdly low for so absurdly long. Mortgage rates eventually going back to the 6-8% range was inevitable.

In closing, here is a mortgage rates haiku:

Seems it may be time
to finally pay the price
for keeping rates low.

If you’re a Seattle Bubble Member, the full data for these charts and more are uploaded to the members-only data repository.

Want to join a conversation about this or other local real estate topics? We’re on Twitter at @SeattleBubble.

The post Time for the housing market to detox from low mortgage rates appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

One of the biggest topics on everybody’s mind lately is home prices, so let’s start there. The median price of single-family homes sold in King County in February was $857,750, up 14% from a year earlier.

As you can see, prices are down slightly from the all-time high of $871,000 back in July, but over the past few years they have really shot up at a ridiculously fast pace. That said, home affordability here isn’t nearly as awful as you might expect. Remember that an affordability index of 100 means that the median household income is spending 30% of their income on the monthly mortgage payment for the median-priced home. An index below 100 means it would take more than 30% of income, above 100 means it would take less than 30%.

Over the past five years, home prices in King County have shot up around 50%, and incomes are up 38%. Rising incomes weren’t enough to keep the affordability index from nosediving in 2017 and early 2018. However, mortgage rates falling from a recent high of 4.87% in November 2018 to an all-time low of 2.68% in December 2020 pushed the affordability index back up above the “affordable” level of 100… until rates started to shoot back up over the past couple of months, that is.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on this chart as rates are expected to continue to climb throughout 2022.

The other big issue for the housing market right now is supply. I’ll be diving deeper into this topic in the coming weeks, looking at actual homebuilding vs. population, but for now let’s just look at the for-sale market. Here’s our chart of months of supply for single-family homes in King County.

It’s interesting to note that months of supply was creeping up toward a more balanced market in 2018, around the same time that the affordability index was nearing an all-time low. I’m sure this is no coincidence. Right now though, we’ve got close to the lowest supply ever.

Last month held some possibly good news for buyers looking for more choices and less competition, as new listings were higher than they’ve been in February five of the past six years, pending sales were at their lowest point in the past three years, and closed sales hit an 8-year low.

That said, we’re a long way from getting back to anything even remotely resembling “normal” when it comes to how many homes are on the market. End-of-month inventory is still close enough to zero that it’s nearly a rounding error.

So what does it all mean? Well, in short, this market sucks for anyone trying to buy a home right now.

As mentioned earlier, I’m planning to dig deeper into the larger issue of housing supply, and I’m also working on a post with my thoughts on whether we’re currently in “housing bubble 2.0” and what might happen over the next few years.

If you’re a Seattle Bubble Member, the full data for all of these charts and more are uploaded to the members-only data repository.

Want to join a conversation about this or other local real estate topics? We’re on Twitter at @SeattleBubble.

The post So… what the heck is going on with the Seattle housing market? appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Here’s the link: Statewide rezoning of single-family neighborhoods is a terrible idea

Now, before we start it’s worth noting that this piece is described as a “Special to The Times” and the author is not a journalist. He’s not an economist, either. He’s also not an urban planner, and as you’ll see he’s obviously not a historian. He’s an architect whose primary accomplishments listed on his bio attached to the piece are having “served on public historic preservation and design review boards.”

So with that context, let’s get into it. Here’s the opening paragraph:

The current debate about major changes to single-family residential zoning has become politically polarized, like every other issue. Clearly much more affordable housing is needed, and as soon as possible, but because there is a housing affordability problem, single-family housing has suddenly been declared “racist” by some groups as a convenient but inflammatory and erroneous way to justify a radical, top-down, across-the-board redefinition of our residential land-use patterns.

He really comes in guns blazing right out of the gate, with scare quotes around “racist” and an angry defensive stance taken right off the bat. Given the tone of that opening, I am sure you will be shocked to learn that Christopher Kirk is a 73-year-old white guy.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that old white guys are all prone to make self-serving, foolish, intellectually dishonest political arguments, but it’s not exactly rare among that particular crowd.

And to be clear on the point of single-family zoning and racism: Yeah, single-family zoning is an inherently racist practice. That’s not up for debate. It’s a documented, historical fact.

Single-family-only zoning was invented by racist white landowners as a way of keeping Black people out of their neighborhoods. When redlining and other more explicit methods were made illegal, zoning became the primary tool to enforce this kind of racial discrimination, and it has the same practical effect today. I’m not going to get into the whole history here, because this subject has been covered very well many times over by others. At the end of this post I’ve embedded a series of videos that explain the racist history and the racist modern impacts of single-family zoning.

Anyway, moving on…

The fastest and most efficient way to develop housing is to build large, multifamily projects

Ahh so obviously every other way of adding more housing should be illegal. Got it.

Wait, no. That’s idiotic. To claim that the only two choices should be super-dense areas packed with large multifamily homes or sprawled-out single-family-only neighborhoods is absurd. The U.S. needs to legalize the “missing middle” housing. Again, I’m not going to get into this in depth, because others have already done the job much better than me. Here’s a video on that topic from the excellent YouTube channel Not Just Bikes.

Going back to the garbage heap that is this editorial:

More, denser housing won’t necessarily mean more affordable housing. Many large cities are denser than Seattle, yet their housing costs are often much higher.

Oh look, it’s a strawman argument! Nobody is saying that allowing denser neighborhoods will “necessarily mean more affordable housing.” But one thing we do know is that artificially limiting what can be built in 75% of the city is definitely a contributing factor to our current housing affordability problem.

Also, even massive housing construction will not fix problems related to inadequate mental-health care, drug addiction or people choosing to live outside normal society.

You have to love a good non sequitur. Again, nobody is trying to claim that eliminating single-family zoning will somehow magically fix problems with mental health or drug addiction. This guy is literally arguing against nonsense points that he’s making up on the spot.

Increasing density beyond ADUs and DADUs is a leap to the common “four pack” and “six pack” projects. These generally level whole sites, eliminating most trees, open space and privacy. They completely change the nature of neighborhoods while creating housing that doesn’t work well for families with children, or most older people, and they are not particularly affordable.

Appealing to “the nature of neighborhoods” is code language used by NIMBYs to keep “undesirable” people out. It’s gross, nebulous, and ultimately meaningless.

Imposing zoning law changes across an entire city or state without review with respect to local conditions ignores a multitude of ethical, legal and environmental principles, as well as decades of planning for the environment, transportation, utilities, parks, schools and other public services.

His implication here that local control is superior to state-wide lawmaking is especially rich, given his previous Seattle Times editorial appearance, which was entirely dedicated to demonizing Seattle city government.

I especially loved this part:

Further, massive, one-size-fits-all rezoning is unprecedented and a terrible shift in public policy. … There is a 100% chance of unintended major negative consequences.

Redlining and discriminatory covenants affected many single-family neighborhoods in the past, but that does not mean single-family neighborhoods are inherently discriminatory today.

Literally in back-to-back paragraphs he decries mysterious, unnamed “unintended major negative consequences” and then immediately pivots to hand-waving dismissal of the 100% intended consequence that single-family zoning continues to have to this day of keeping Black people out of certain neighborhoods. Truly astounding.

Single-family housing is more expensive because it has more open space and vegetation, more living space, more peace and quiet, and more stable populations of long-term neighbors who know each other — all reasons why people pay more to live in single-family neighborhoods.

No ignorant housing rant would be complete without throwing in the implication that filthy renters are lousy, unstable neighbors and generally bad people that nobody wants to be around.

Finally, he closes by calling the proposal to eliminate single-family zoning…

radical, ill-conceived, statewide rezoning which will have unpredictable effects on the character of your neighborhood and the value of your home

It’s like NIMBY buzzword bingo. Again with the “neighborhood character” dog whistle, and an explicit appeal to homeowner greed for the almighty “home value.” Just all-around disgusting.

Well, at least Christopher Kirk’s garbage editorial had one good outcome: It gave me the motivation to finally come back here and post something fresh. So… good job, I guess.

Anyway, if you’re not a selfish jerk and you’d like to support eliminating crappy single-family-only zoning, contact your state legislators and tell them they should support HB 1782.

Want to join a conversation about this or other local real estate topics? We’re on Twitter at @SeattleBubble.

Videos About the Racist History of Single-Family Zoning

The post Eliminating single-family zoning is a good idea, and Christopher Kirk’s Seattle Times editorial is a steaming pile of garbage appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

If you want to share some thoughts with me, feel free to drop me a line directly via the contact form, or if you feel the need for the whole world to see your thoughts, we can have a public conversation on Twitter.

I’m also working on updating my data, and will work on posting new updates here at least once a week. The market is still pretty crappy for homebuyers, but things are at least sort of changing a little bit in the last few weeks.

The post Cleaning House, Working on Updates appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

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:

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

The post Around the Sound: Still a dismal market for buyers everywhere appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

October market data from the NWMLS is available. Here’s what happened last month in the Seattle-area housing market: Home prices and pending sales fell slightly, but closed sales rose to the highest level ever seen during an October—over 3,000 sales. The previous record for closed sales during an October was 2,922 sales in 2003. October this year saw 20% more sales than the highest October level in the last ten years (2,514 in 2016).

Obviously the pandemic and recession is having virtually zero impact on homebuying demand.

I haven’t yet seen a press release from the NWMLS, so let’s just get into the data.

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):

October 2020	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	2,258	-6.7%	-37.6%
Closed Sales	3,027	+6.3%	+36.0%
SAAS (?)	1.02	-7.0%	-4.7%
Pending Sales	3,007	-9.6%	+16.0%
Months of Supply	0.75	-12.2%	-54.2%
Median Price*	$745,000	-1.1%	+12.9%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory fell 6.7 percent from September to October, and was down 38 percent from last year. We still haven’t hit the all-time low point for the number of homes on the market, and the trend seems to be flatlining somewhat, so we may not hit that point this winter.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

Good news again for new listings, which were up 30 percent from a year ago. This October saw more new listings than any October since 2007.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales rose from September to October, which is not uncommon, but the 6 percent increase was enough to make it the largest October on record for closed sales. Year-over-year closed sales were up 36 percent.

Pending sales fell 10 percent from September to October, and were up 16 percent year-over-year.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

Still not a pretty picture for homebuyers, with demand sharply rising and supply still falling. At least the rate of decline in home supply is stabilizing.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

Year-over-year home price changes have been in the double digits for three months in a row now, gaining 13% in October.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

October 2019: $660,000
October 2020: $745,000
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

The post NWMLS: Strongest October ever for closed sales appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

As promised last week, here’s an updated look at the “affordable home” price chart.

In this graph I flip the variables in the affordability index calculation around to other sides of the equation to calculate what price home the a family earning the median household income could “afford” to buy at today’s mortgage rates, if they spent 30% of their monthly gross income on their home payment. Don’t forget that this math includes the (giant) assumption that the home buyers are putting 20% down, which would be $148,590 at today’s median price.

The “affordable” home price has shot up from $530,359 in November 2018 to an all-time high of $706,800 as of August. The current “affordable” home price in King County would have a monthly payment of $2,365.

The current gap of $36,150 between the affordable price and the median price is similar to the difference we saw between the two numbers in mid-2005.

If interest rates were at a more reasonable level of 6 percent (which is still quite low by historical standards), the “affordable” home price would be just $493,215—more than $200,000 below where it is today, and nearly $250,000 below the current median price.

Here’s the alternate view on this data, where I flip the numbers around to calculate the household income required to make the median-priced home affordable at today’s mortgage rates, and compare that to actual median household incomes.

As of August, a household would need to earn $99,466 a year to be able to “afford” the median-priced $742,950 home in King County. This is up from the low of $46,450 in February 2012, but down slightly from the May 2018 high of $119,004. The previous cycle high in July 2007 was $99,321. Meanwhile, the actual median household income in King County is estimated to be about $94,500.

If interest rates were 6% (around the pre-bust level), the income necessary to buy a median-priced home would be $142,540—51 percent above the current median income.

The post “Affordable” home price shot up 33% in less than two years appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a look at our affordability index charts for the counties around Puget Sound, so let’s have a look at those charts. As of August, the affordability index currently sits at 95.1, which is somewhat lower than the 1993-2002 average of 107.6, but not ridiculously lower. For context, 69 percent of the 331 months on record back through 1993 have had a higher affordability index than what we had in August 2020.

An index level above 100 indicates that the monthly payment on a median-priced home costs less than 30% of the median household income. An index below 100 means that the monthly payment is over 30% of the median income.

I’ve marked where affordability would be if interest rates were at a more historically sane level of 6 percent—66.4, which is worse than every other month on record except July 2007, the absolute peak of the previus housing bubble. At that time interest rates were 6.7%, and if rates were that high today, the affordability index for King County single-family homes would be 61.7.

If rates went up to a more historically “normal” level of 8 percent (the average rate through the ’90s), the affordability index would be at 54.2—nine points below the record low level that was set in July 2007.

What’s interesting to me is how sharply the affordability index shifted from a rapid decline through most of 2017 and early 2018 to a sharp increase between early 2018 and today. To try to unpack this, let’s look at the individual components that make up the affordability index: home prices, incomes, and interest rates.

In 2017 and early 2018, home prices shot up rapidly, cratering the affordability index. After peaking in May (earlier than usual), home prices fell pretty dramatically over the following eight months, shaving off 16 percent by January of 2019. In fact, it looked a lot like another home price bubble may have been bursting in Seattle.

However, just as these price declines were beginning to gain steam, mortgage rates began dropping like a rock, falling from 4.87% in November 2018 to an inconceivable 2.94% as of August. It sure looks to me like this sudden shift in mortgage rates put the brakes on declining home prices in the Seattle area, and are probably solely responsible for the price increases we have seen over the past year and a half.

Obviously nothing happens in a vacuum, and there are myriad other factors at play here too, but the near-perfect synchronization of the sudden shift in the home price chart and the mortgage rates chart is difficult to ignore.

Anyway, here’s a look at the affordability index for Snohomish County and Pierce County since 2000, which have seen similar improvements in affordability driven almost entirely by declining mortage rates:

The affordability index in Snohomish currently sits at 120.8, while Pierce County is at 125.0. Both up considerably from their 2018 low points, and at levels comparable to 2008 or 2009.

You can calculate whether a home purchase scenario is “affordable” using the Affordability Index measure with my simple affordability calculator.

Next week I’ll post updated versions of my charts of the “affordable” home price and income required to afford the median-priced home. Hit the jump for the affordability index methodology, as well as a bonus chart of the affordability index in the outlying Puget Sound counties.

As a reminder, the affordability index is based on three factors: median single-family home price as reported by the NWMLS, 30-year monthly mortgage rates as reported by the Freddie Mac, and estimated median household income as reported by the Washington State Office of Financial Management.

The historic standard for “affordable” housing is that monthly costs do not exceed 30% of one’s income. Therefore, the formula for the affordability index is as follows:

For a more detailed examination of what the affordability index is and what it isn’t, I invite you to read this 2009 post. Or, to calculate your the affordability of your own specific income and home price scenario, check out my Affordability Calculator.

The post Plunging mortgage rates held off a Seattle home price crash appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

August market stats were published by the NWMLS on Friday before the holiday weekend. The King County median price of single-family homes rose over 10 percent year-over-year for the first time since May of 2018. Inventory is way down from a year ago, and pending sales climbed to an all-time record high.

Recession? What recession?

Before we get into our detailed monthly stats, here’s a quick look at their press release.

Would-be homebuyers have more buying power, but also more competition for meager inventory
“In order for buyers to be successful in purchasing a home in today’s climate, they have to do some pretty illogical things,” remarked Wilson, the Kitsap regional manager and branch managing broker at John L. Scott Real Estate in Poulsbo. As examples, he listed waiving inspections, paying more than the house is worth, or agreeing to pay the difference in cash between the lower appraised value and the sales price. “These are counterintuitive to what we used to see with a negotiation process,” he lamented.

“The lowest number of homes for sale in more than 20 years combined with the lowest mortgage rates on record are resulting in the perfect storm of frustration for buyers – but they are still out in force,” stated Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner. “The few homes that are on the market are being snapped up quickly, and this excess of demand is causing record-high prices for single family homes in the Puget Sound area.” He also noted rising demand for lower density housing in outer suburbs.

I still find it quite amusing that Matthew Gardner is now the Chief Economist at Windermere.

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):

August 2020	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	2,590	-1.7%	-38.2%
Closed Sales	2,783	+0.7%	+10.0%
SAAS (?)	1.36	-1.2%	+23.2%
Pending Sales	3,537	+3.1%	+34.8%
Months of Supply	0.93	-2.3%	-43.8%
Median Price*	$742,950	+2.1%	+10.9%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory fell 1.7 percent from July to August, and was down 38 percent from last year. We’re not currently at an all-time low for the number of homes on the market, but this winter is shaping up to hit a new low unless something changes dramatically.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

The good news is that new listings were up 35 percent from a year ago, and did not decline nearly as much between July and August as we see in a typical year.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales were basically flat between July and August. Last year over the same period closed sales fell 4 percent. Year-over-year closed sales were up 10 percent.

Pending sales rose 3 percent from July to August, and were up 35 percent year-over-year. No month on record going all the way back through 2000 has seen more pending sales than we saw in August. For Seattle-area homebuyers, the recession is apparently non-existent.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

Not a pretty picture for homebuyers, with demand on the rise and supply falling.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

Year-over-year home price changes jumped up to over 10 percent for the first time in over two years.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

August 2019: $670,000
August 2020: $742,950
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

Here’s the article from the Seattle Times: Western Washington home prices hit new record highs

The post NWMLS: Pending sales hit an all-time high in August appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

As we’re getting back into the swing of things, let’s check out the housing stats for the recently-completed month of August. Overall it’s the same story we’ve been seeing for quite some time: Sales are up and listings are way down from a year ago. Foreclosures are practically non-existent (which was the case even before the various mortgage forbearance programs went into place).

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

Rapidly decreasing inventory coupled with continued year-over-year gains in sales is still the biggest news in this month’s data. First up, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County fell slightly (-2.2%) between July and August (a year ago they fell further—5.5%—over the same period), but were up 7.6 percent year-over-year.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish fell 4.6 percent month-over-month (versus a 3.4 percent decline in the same period last year) but were up 2.3 percent from a year earlier.

Next, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County fell 5.0 percent from July to August. Year-over-year listings were down 40 percent from August 2019. There has been a severe shortage of homes for sale in the Seattle area all year, even before the pandemic began depressing listings.

In Snohomish County inventory fell 16 percent month-over-month, and was down 60 percent from a year earlier.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts, which I continue to include for posterity, not because there are any really interesting numbers in them.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were down 72 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were down 83 percent from last year. Last year’s levels were already exceptionally low, but mortgage forbearance has pushed these numbers to as close to zero as they can go.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were down 22 percent from a year ago. Even with as strong as the housing market is, 21 homes were still foreclosed on last month in King County.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post August stats preview: Plenty of demand, still so little supply appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Note that the tiers are determined by sale volume. In other words, 1/3 of all sales fall into each tier. For more details on the tier methodologies, hit the full methodology pdf. Here are the current tier breakpoints:

• Low Tier: < $448,069 (up 0.3%)
• Mid Tier: $448,069 – $670,317
• Hi Tier: > $670,317 (up 0.4%)

First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through June 2020.

Here’s a zoom-in, showing just the last year:

The low and middle tiers both rose month-over-month in June, but the high tier fell slightly. Over the past year and a half the low tier has definitely been showing the most strength.

Between May and June, the low tier increased 1.1 percent, the middle tier rose 0.7 percent, and the high tier fell 0.1 percent.

Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from January 2003 through June 2020.

Year-over-year price growth is relatively strong in all three tiers, but not the highest it’s been. So far this year price growth seems to have peaked in April. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of June – Low: +9.1 percent, Med: +6.7 percent, Hi: +5.0 percent.

Lastly, here’s a change-from-peak graph like the one in the national post with all of the Case-Shiller markets, but looking only at the Seattle tiers.

Current standing is 43.1 percent above the 2007 peak for the low tier, 39.4 percent above for the middle tier, and 39.6 percent above for the high tier.

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2020-08-25)

The post Case-Shiller Tiers: Low Tier Home Prices are Soaring appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Up 0.2 percent May to June
Up 6.5 percent YOY.
Up 41.5 percent from the July 2007 peak

Last year at this time prices were up 0.6 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were down 1.3 percent.

Seattle is currently ranked #2 in largest year-over-year price growth, only behind Phoenix at 9.0 percent growth.

Here’s a Tableau Public interactive graph of the year-over-year change for all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Check and un-check the boxes on the right to modify which cities are showing:

Here’s how the month-over-month price changes looked for all twenty markets:

Hit the jump for the rest of our monthly Case-Shiller charts, including the interactive chart of raw index data for all 20 metro areas.

There were eight metro areas that hit new all-time highs in April: Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Charlotte, Portland, and Dallas.

Here’s the interactive chart of the raw HPI for all twenty metro areas through April.

Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve metro areas whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.

In the 155 months since the 2007 price peak in Seattle prices are up 41.5 percent.

Lastly, let’s see how Seattle’s current prices compare to the previous bubble inflation and subsequent burst. Note that this chart does not adjust for inflation.

We saw a pretty strong price spike in 2018, followed by a bit of a decline, but since then prices seem to be back to a pretty typical seasonal pattern of strong gains in the spring and only a slight reduction in the fall and winter.

Here’s the Seattle Times’ story about this month’s numbers: Seattle-area home prices rise faster than nearly every other U.S. city, driven in part by younger homebuyers

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2020-08-25)

The post Case-Shiller: Seattle Home Prices Up 6.5% from 2019 in July appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

First up: Median prices of single-family homes as of July. In a word: Up.

It’s a bit difficult to really appreciate just how much home prices are rising right now when looking at the raw dollar values, so here’s the year-over-year change for each of our eight counties:

Home prices are increasing double digits in every Puget Sound county except Island and King, where they are still up 7-8% from a year ago. If homebuyers were hoping or expecting that the pandemic would lead to some good home deals, they’re no doubt very disappointed so far.

So why are prices rising so much? Well, this may have something to do with it:

Remember, “months of supply” is the ratio between closed sales and the number of homes on the market at the end of the month. We’re not quite at all-time lows, but every single county did see its lowest July on record for the measure. In other words, there are still plenty of homebuyers out there willing to buy, even in the midst of a global pandemic, and even when home prices are rising so quickly.

Crazy-low mortgage interest rates are probably at least partly to blame, but even that only goes so far to explaining the insanity of the current market. We’ll continue exploring this topic in the weeks and months to come, for sure.

The post The pandemic has sparked a massive seller’s market and big price spikes around Seattle appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

The post Seattle Bubble and The Tim are not dead, just in hibernation. appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

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.

Home Buyers Seeking Affordability Are Expanding Search Outside Greater Seattle Job Centers

Depleted inventory continues to frustrate would-be buyers in Western Washington. Many of these potential homeowners are expanding their search beyond the major job centers in King County, according to market watchers who commented on the latest statistics from Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
…
“While August is always a slower time for listings and sales, what is really surprising this year is the decrease in new listings taken, while pending sales increased,” observed Mike Grady, president and COO of Coldwell Banker Bain.
…
Multiple offers are still commonplace with many buyers walking away disappointed, according to Wilson. “Traffic is strong at open houses and our average market time is still very low for correctly priced homes,” he added.

“The August numbers offered a few interesting nuggets,” stated OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate. “The Seattle area housing market is still coming off the ‘sugar high’ that we saw last summer, but homes sales and prices are stabilizing, which is reassuring to both buyers and sellers.”

Quick note: According to data from Redfin, multiple offers are far from “commonplace” now. In August fewer than 10 percent of offers in the Seattle area faced competition. (Disclosure: Tim works for Redfin.)

However, new listings are indeed way down. Let’s get into the data to quantify the drop.

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):

August 2019	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	4,194	-4.7%	-10.1%
Closed Sales	2,531	-3.9%	+6.1%
SAAS (?)	1.11	-4.8%	-22.9%
Pending Sales	2,623	-10.1%	+7.9%
Months of Supply	1.66	-0.7%	-15.3%
Median Price*	$670,000	-1.5%	+0.1%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory fell five percent from July to August. During the same period a year ago, inventory rose 12 percent. The 10 percent year-over-year drop in inventory is the biggest decline we’ve seen since January 2018.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings were down 10 percent from July to August, and were down 18 percent from a year ago. Only 2011 and 2012 saw fewer new listings in August than we had in 2019.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales fell four percent between July and August, and were up six percent from last year. Closed sales have been in a fairly tight range between about 2,400 and 2,800 in August every year since 2013, and this year fell right in the middle of that range at 2,531.

Pending sales fell 10 percent month-over-month but were up eight percent year-over-year.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

The good news for buyers with respect to housing supply was short-lived. Supply is back in the red.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

Home prices dipped a bit last month, but not by as much as they did this time last year, so we ended up back in the black year-over-year, just barely.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

August 2019: $670,000
August 2018: $669,000
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

Here’s the article about these numbers from the Seattle Times: The market’s chilled out, but Seattle home prices still too hot for many first-time buyers

The post NWMLS: New listings dry up as home prices plateau appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Where does the time go? Apologies for the radio silence! August was crazy busy, but we’re getting caught up now. Most of the spreadsheets are updated for members, and I’ll be posting some refreshed data and commentary about the current market here this week.

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.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

First up, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County fell nine percent from July to August, and year-over-year listings were down 14 percent from August 2018. This is the first year-over-year decline since March 2018.

In Snohomish County inventory fell 12 percent month-over-month, and the year-over-year decline was 20 percent. So much for the “rush to the exits” some people were hoping for. I know a lot of people are expecting / hoping for some sort of new crash, but this decline in listings is a pretty big sign that no such crash is imminent.

Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County fell 0.6 percent between July and August (a year ago they fell 3.2 percent over the same period), and fell 5.5 percent year-over-year.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish fell 2.7 percent month-over-month (in the same period last year they were down 17 percent) and were down 3.4 percent from a year earlier.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in both King and Snohomish Counties are still scraping along the bottom with fewer than 100 notices per month. Notices in King were down 11 percent from a year earlier, while Snohomish was up 6 percent, which is a difference of 3 additional notices.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were up 13 percent from a year ago.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post August Stats Preview: Where did the listings go? appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

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.

First up, a summary table:

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.

Here’s a look at new listings across the region:

New listings fell everywhere but Skagit County in June. Bad news for buyers hoping to find more selection as we head into the summer.

Next up: Active inventory.

Inventory fell in Thurston and Pierce counties, but increased everywhere else. King and Snohomish saw the biggest gains, but both of those were far smaller than the gains we saw late last year and earlier this year.

Here’s the chart of median prices compared to a year ago.

The biggest increase in home prices in June was Skagit, where prices rose 12 percent. Kitsap was close behind with an 11 percent increase. Every other county was in the single digits.

Closed sales were down in every county but Skagit, where they managed an increase of less than one percent.

This graph is the most telling—every county is still a very strong sellers’ market. Most counties are slightly better for buyers than they were a year ago, but we’ve still got a long ways to go before we get even close to what most people would call a “balanced” market (4-6 months of supply).

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.

The post Around the Sound: King County alone in price drops and big inventory gains appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Five posts in a single day! This has to be some kind of record.

The NWMLS just updated 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.

The NWMLS hasn’t published their press release yet, so let’s get straight into the numbers.

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):

June 2019	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	4,625	+2.5%	+24.4%
Closed Sales	2,718	+2.9%	-1.5%
SAAS (?)	1.32	-16.2%	-9.4%
Pending Sales	3,166	-6.6%	+6.3%
Months of Supply	1.70	-0.3%	+26.2%
Median Price*	$695,000	-0.7%	-2.8%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory was up just 2.5 percent from May to June, which is much smaller than the double-digit gains we have seen over the same period during the last three years. June of last year saw a 28 percent month-over-month gain. That said, this month’s inventory level is still the highest we’ve seen at the end of June since 2012. Overall, the supply situation is still a marginally good sign for buyers.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings were down 22 percent from May to June, and were down 11 percent from a year ago. That’s a bit concerning for those of us who were hoping to see a continued expansion of supply.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales rose just 3 percent between May and June, and were down 1 percent from last year. Closed sales have been in a fairly tight range between about 2,400 and 2,900 in June every year since 2013, and this year fell right in the middle of that range at 2,718.

Pending sales fell 7 percent month-over-month but were up 6 percent year-over-year. At the same time last year, pending sales were down 10 percent month-over-month.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

The good news is that even after the steep drop-off since December, we’re still at a higher point than any other time after mid-2008.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

That’s four months in a row now that we have seen falling prices compared to a year ago. It seems that $700,000 appears to be a bit of a price ceiling right now for King County single-family homes.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

June 2019: $695,000
June 2018: $715,000
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

So far there’s no story posted yet on the June data from the Seattle Times. I’ll update this post when their story goes up.

Update: Here’s their story, by Paul Roberts: June real-estate numbers tell a now-familiar story: Seattle is losing buyers to Tacoma, other outlying spots

The post NWMLS: Home prices and sales stagnated in June appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

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.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

First up, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County rose less than one percent from May to June, and year-over-year listings are up 22 percent from June 2018. If this were any other year I’d say that was a huge gain, but it’s the smallest year-over-year increase we’ve seen since April 2018.

In Snohomish County inventory fell 4 percent month-over-month, and the year-over-year growth was a measly 3.9 percent. This is the smallest year-over-year inventory increase in Snohomish County since it flipped into the black back in May 2018.

Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County fell 3.6 percent between May and June (a year ago they rose 3.6 percent over the same period), and fell 6.8 percent year-over-year.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish fell 0.5 percent month-over-month (in the same period last year they were up 5.6 percent) and were down 11.8 percent from a year earlier.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were down 13 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were down 16 percent from last year. Since the numbers are so low, recent changes can appear large in percentage terms, but we’re talking about changes of just a few dozen month to month and compared to the prior year.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were up 52 percent from a year ago.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post Stats Preview: Sales dipped in June as listings increase shrank further appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Here’s the Consumer Confidence data as of June:

The overall Consumer Confidence Index currently sits at 121.5, down 7.5 percent in a month and down 4.4 percent from a year ago.

At 162.6, the Present Situation Index also fell between May and June, down 4.7 percent, but is up 0.6 percent from a year earlier. The Present Situation Index is currently up 705 percent from its December 2009 low point, and is still 18 percent higher than the pre-bust peak in July 2007.

The Expectations Index also fell in June, down 10.4 percent from May, and dropped from a year earlier by 9.5 percent.

All three parts of the index have declined quite a bit from their late-2018 high points. They didn’t quite reach the same level of high as the high water mark set back in 2000.

Click below for the interactive Consumer Confidence chart in Tableau.

You can use the sliders under the interactive chart below to zoom in on the data for a specific period.

The post Consumer Confidence has been stagnating, and fell in June appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Note that the tiers are determined by sale volume. In other words, 1/3 of all sales fall into each tier. For more details on the tier methodologies, hit the full methodology pdf. Here are the current tier breakpoints:

• Low Tier: < $399,336 (up 2.0%)
• Mid Tier: $399,336 – $624,393
• Hi Tier: > $624,393 (up 1.6%)

First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through April 2019.

Here’s a zoom-in, showing just the last year:

All three tiers rose month-over-month in April. The largest increase was in the low tier.

Between March and April, the low tier increased 1.6 percent, the middle tier rose 1.0 percent, and the high tier climbed 1.2 percent.

Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from January 2003 through April 2019.

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. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of April – Low: +4.6 percent, Med: +<0.1 percent, Hi: -1.8 percent.

Lastly, here’s a change-from-peak graph like the one in the national post with all of the Case-Shiller markets, but looking only at the Seattle tiers.

Current standing is 27.7 percent above the 2007 peak for the low tier, 28.3 percent above for the middle tier, and 31.5 percent above for the high tier.

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2019-06-25)

The post Case-Shiller Tiers: High Tier Price Drops Accelerate appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

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.

Seattle has fallen from #1 in year-over-year price growth back in May 2018 all the way down to dead last #20 as of April.

Here’s a Tableau Public interactive graph of the year-over-year change for all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Check and un-check the boxes on the right to modify which cities are showing:

Here’s how the month-over-month price changes looked for all twenty markets:

Hit the jump for the rest of our monthly Case-Shiller charts, including the interactive chart of raw index data for all 20 metro areas.

There were eight metro areas that hit new all-time highs in April: Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Charlotte, Portland, and Dallas.

Here’s the interactive chart of the raw HPI for all twenty metro areas through April.

Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve metro areas whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.

In the 141 months since the 2007 price peak in Seattle prices are up 30.9 percent.

Lastly, let’s see how Seattle’s current prices compare to the previous bubble inflation and subsequent burst. Note that this chart does not adjust for inflation.

It was quite a decline over the winter, but prices bounced back sharply during the spring. Will they continue to rise, or flat-line and drop further this winter? That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

Here’s the Seattle Times’ story about this month’s numbers: Seattle is ‘a notable exception’ for stalled home prices

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2019-06-25)

The post Case-Shiller: Seattle-Area Home Prices Flat in April appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

The NWMLS published their May stats today, 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 in May, the third 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 week, the rate of increase is rapidly declining from the all-time high set in December. Pending and closed sales are increasing, but only modestly.

The NWMLS hasn’t published their press release yet, so let’s get straight into the numbers.

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):

May 2019	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	4,511	+26.2%	+54.9%
Closed Sales	2,642	+23.1%	+6.8%
SAAS (?)	1.57	+5.0%	-1.1%
Pending Sales	3,388	+8.3%	+2.3%
Months of Supply	1.71	+2.5%	+45.1%
Median Price*	$700,000	+1.4%	-3.6%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory was up 26 percent from April to May, which is the second-largest May increase on record. May of last year saw a 37 percent month-over-month gain. This month’s inventory level is the highest we’ve seen at the end of May since 2012. Overall, the supply situation is still a good sign for buyers.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings were up 29 percent from April to May, and were up six percent from a year ago. It’s the highest number of new listings in the month of May since 2012.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales rose 23 percent between April and May, and were up 7 percent from last year. Closed sales have been in a fairly tight range between 2,300 and 2,700 in May every year since 2013, and this year is no exception.

Pending sales rose 8 percent month-over-month and were basically flat year-over-year. At the same time last year, pending sales were up 24 percent month-over-month.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

We knew the huge gains late last year wouldn’t last. Although the rate of increase is falling off fast, we’re still in basically record territory. Very few times have seen year-over-year gains in inventory that were this large.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

That’s three months in a row of falling prices compared to a year ago. Definitely interesting. Perhaps prices around here have finally hit a saturation point?

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

May 2019: $700,000
May 2018: $726,275
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

So far there’s no story posted yet on the May data from the Seattle Times. I’ll update this post when their story goes up.

Side-note: In case you missed it, last month the Seattle Times real estate reporter Mike Rosenberg was suspended from his job for inappropriate behavior. His harassment detailed in that story is very disappointing and frankly, gross. Men should treat all women with respect, all the time. It is really not that hard. It’s especially disappointing to me because I have highly respected his work at the Times for years.

[Update]
Here’s Paul Roberts’ story for the Seattle Times: Seattle housing market stays cool, while Tacoma and suburbs keep up the heat

The post NWMLS: Listings up, sales flat, prices fall in May appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Hey look who it is. That Seattle Bubble guy. He’s not gone after all. Seriously though, everything is fine. Things just got a bit busy.

Let’s have a look at the May stats, shall we?

In summary: Although the market is definitely not as hot as it was a year ago, it’s no longer moving strongly in a direction favorable to buyers. Sales are basically flat and the growth in inventory is slowing. I had hoped the market would soften more, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen this year.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

First up, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County rose 15 percent from April to May, and year-over-year listings are up 41 percent from May 2018. That’s a good gain, but the smallest one since May 2018. Here’s what the year-over-year trend looks like for King County listings since January 2017:

In Snohomish County inventory rose 30 percent month-over-month, and the year-over-year growth was up 39 percent. It’s a similar story in Snohomish, with the smallest gain since August.

Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County rose 15 percent between April and May (a year ago they rose 12 percent over the same period), and were flat year-over-year.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish rose 8 percent month-over-month (in the same period last year they were up 15 percent) and were down 6 percent from a year earlier.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were up 36 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were down four percent from last year. Since the numbers are so low, recent changes can appear large in percentage terms, but we’re talking about changes of just a few dozen month to month and compared to the prior year.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were up 52 percent from a year ago.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post May Stats Preview: Not Dead Yet Edition! appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

It’s been a few months since we took a look at the in-county breakdown data from the NWMLS to see how the sales mix shifted around the county. I like to keep an eye on this not only to see how individual neighborhoods are doing but also to see how the sales mix shift affects the overall county-wide median price.

As of March, prices are up from a year ago in the low-end regions, flat in the mid-range regions, and down in the high-end regions. Meanwhile, the share of sales is tilting toward the low-end regions.

In order to explore this concept, we break King County down into three regions, based on the NWMLS-defined “areas”:

• low end: South County (areas 100-130 & 300-360)
• mid range: Seattle / North County (areas 140, 380-390, & 700-800)
• high end: Eastside (areas 500-600)

Here’s where each region’s median prices came in as of March data:

• low end: $379,000-$593,750
• mid range: $615,000-$1,090,000
• high end: $814,037-$2,586,183

First let’s look at the percentage of each month’s closed sales that took place in each of the three regions.

The last few years have each followed a similar pattern: while sales in the mid-range regions maintain a fairly steady share of sales in the county each month, sales in the cheaper parts of the county (South King) surge in the winter and dip in the summer, with sales in the most expensive parts (Eastside) doing the opposite. Except for a big spike in Seattle in February, so far we’re seeing the same pattern this year.

The raw number of sales in all three tiers increased between February and March. Month-over-month sales were up 35 percent in the low tier, up six percent in the middle tier, and up 42 percent in the high tier.

Meanwhile, year-over-year sales were down in all three tiers. Compared to a year ago, sales decreased five percent in the low tier, fell seven percent in the middle tier, and dropped four percent in the high tier.

As of March 2019, 37.9 percent of sales were in the low end regions (basically flat from 37.8 percent a year ago), 32.0 percent in the mid range (down slightly from 32.6 percent a year ago), and 30.1 percent in the high end (up from 29.6 percent a year ago).

Here’s that information in a visual format:

Here’s an updated look at the percentage of sales data all the way back through 2000:

During the housing bubble that burst in 2008, South King consistently had the largest share of sales. We’ve seen the same thing over the last few years as prices have once again grown to astronomical levels. In the lead-up to the big 2008 bust, sales in South King fell as sales in Seattle gained ground. February’s spike in Seattle’s sales share could be a portent of a similar pattern, or it could just be a blip. We’ll see over the next few months.

Finally, let’s have a look at each region’s (approximate) median price (actually the median of the medians for each area within the region).

All three tiers saw month-over-month gains in their respective median-median price, but only the low tier is currently at an all-time record high. Month-over-month, the median price in the low tier rose three percent, the middle tier increased eight percent, and the high tier gained nine percent.

Eighteen of the twenty-nine NWMLS regions in King County with single-family home sales in March had a higher median price than a year ago, while 23 had a month-over-month increase in the median price.

Here’s how the median prices changed year-over-year. Low tier: up 5.2 percent, middle tier: up 0.1 percent, high tier: down 4.7 percent.

The post Cheapest parts of King County still make up the largest share of sales, even as prices there grow the most appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

It’s been a few months since we had a look at the stats in the broader Puget Sound area, so let’s update our charts through March. Here’s the latest update to our “Around the Sound” statistics for King, Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Island, Skagit, and Whatcom counties.

First up, a summary table:

King County still has some of the most dramatic changes, as the only county with a drop in the median price and by far the biggest increase in active listings. That said, active listings are up and closed sales are down across the board. Skagit, Kitsap, Pierce, and Thurston all still saw double-digit year-over-year declines in sales.

Here’s a look at new listings across the region:

New listings were up the most in Kitsap County, which saw 15 percent more listing than a year earlier. Listings were also up in King, Snohomish, and Skagit, but fell in Pierce, Island, and Whatcom.

Next up: Active inventory.

Inventory was up everywhere, but only just barely in Thurston, which saw an increase of less than one percent from a year earlier. Island was the second-smallest gain at eight percent. Every other county saw at least double-digit increases in inventory from March 2018.

Here’s the chart of median prices compared to a year ago.

Prices were up everywhere but King County, with the biggest gains in Thurston County, up eight percent.

Closed sales fell in every county, but only just barely in Snohomish. King and Whatcom counties were down five percent and Island fell seven percent. Every other county saw double-digit decreases in closed sales.

Every county is still deep in sellers’ market territory, but at least they’re all improving from a year ago.

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.

The post Around the Sound: Inventory up, sales down across the board appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

The NWMLS published their March stats today, 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 in March, falling more than it has since March of 2012. Inventory was up from a year ago again, but the increase was the smallest in the last five months. Pending sales recovered from the February snow storm dip, but were only up five percent.

The NWMLS press release hasn’t been published yet, so let’s get right to the numbers.

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):

March 2019	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	3,277	+15.0%	+94.3%
Closed Sales	1,784	+25.9%	-5.3%
SAAS (?)	1.67	+56.0%	+12.0%
Pending Sales	2,847	+59.1%	+5.1%
Months of Supply	1.84	-8.7%	+105.0%
Median Price*	$667,725	+1.9%	-3.2%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory was up 15 percent from February to March, quite a bit smaller than the 24 percent month-over-month gain over the same period a year earlier.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings surged from February to March, and were up six percent from a year ago. Seeing a year-over-year increase in new listings is definitely encouraging for buyers.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales rose 26 percent between February and March, but were down five percent from last year. This is probably due to the pending sales dip last month thanks to the snow storm.

Pending sales shot up 59 month-over-month and five percent year-over-year. At the same time last year, pending sales were up 43 percent month-over-month and flat year-over-year.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

That rate of growth is falling off almost as quickly as it shot up, but we’re still basically in record high territory.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

The last time median home prices were down this much year-over-year was in March of 2012—basically the bottom for home prices.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

March 2019: $667,725
March 2018: $689,950
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

Here’s the article about these numbers from the Seattle Times: Relief for Seattle-area condo buyers as prices drop amid flood of new units

The post NWMLS: Prices down, listings way up, sales flat from a year ago appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Let’s take a look at our early March housing stats.

Overall the market is still moving in a direction favorable to buyers, but more slowly than it was late last year. By March of this year inventory is already at levels that it didn’t hit until May or June last year. Meanwhile, sales are still down from a year earlier. Foreclosures are still not really an issue at all right now.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

First up, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County climbed 18 percent from February to March, and year-over-year listings are up 99 percent from March 2018.

In Snohomish County inventory rose 7 percent month-over-month, and the year-over-year growth was up 81 percent. Both counties were seeing much larger year-over-year increases in inventory in December and January.

Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County rose 19 percent between February and March (a year ago they rose 31 percent over the same period), and were down 18 percent year-over-year.

Keep in mind that sales that closed in March mostly went pending in February, which is when we had the giant snow storm. So it’s not surprising to see weak closed sales for March.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish rose 13 percent month-over-month (in the same period last year they were up 33 percent) and were down 14 percent from a year earlier.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were up two percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were up 14 percent from last year. Since the numbers are so low, recent changes can appear large in percentage terms, but we’re talking about changes of just a few dozen month to month and compared to the prior year.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were up 35 percent from a year ago.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post March Stats Preview: Inventory still up big, but gains slow even as home sales slip appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Down 0.3 percent December to January
Up 4.1 percent YOY.
Up 26.7 percent from the July 2007 peak

Last year at this time prices were up 0.7 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were up 12.8 percent.

Seattle’s streak of dead last for month-over-month price changes lasted five months between July and November, and has since climbed slightly to #13 of 20 in the mont-over-month charts.

Seattle has fallen from #1 in year-over-year price growth back in May all the way down to #11 as of January, falling below the overall national rate.

Here’s a Tableau Public interactive graph of the year-over-year change for all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Check and un-check the boxes on the right to modify which cities are showing:

Here’s how the month-over-month price changes looked for all twenty markets:

Hit the jump for the rest of our monthly Case-Shiller charts, including the interactive chart of raw index data for all 20 metro areas.

There were two metro areas that hit new all-time highs in January: Charlotte and Dallas.

Here’s the interactive chart of the raw HPI for all twenty metro areas through January.

Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve metro areas whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.

In the 138 months since the 2007 price peak in Seattle prices are up 26.7 percent.

Lastly, let’s see how Seattle’s current prices compare to the previous bubble inflation and subsequent burst. Note that this chart does not adjust for inflation.

This is by far the biggest decline in prices that we’ve seen since the previous bubble burst. Will it continue into 2019? I personally doubt it, but we’ll see.

Here’s the Seattle Times’ story about this month’s numbers: Seattle-area home price cool-down stands out among U.S. cities

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2019-03-26)

The post Case-Shiller: Seattle home price gains below average in January appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

I’ve gotten way behind recently as life and other projects have gotten busy, and I apologize.

Let’s play some catchup and take a look at February market stats from the NWMLS. The King County median price of single-family homes was basically flat year-over-year in February, inventory was way up from a year ago but not by as much as it has been, and pending sales slipped thanks to the nasty weather.

Before we get into our detailed monthly stats, here’s a quick look at their press release.

Heavy Snowfall Ices February Housing Activity Around Western Washington
Seattle’s snowiest month in 50 years had an obvious chilling effect on February’s housing activity, agreed officials with Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Statistics for last month show pending sales dropped nearly 14 percent compared to the same month a year ago.

“The winter weather brought the market to a halt,” stated John Deely, principal managing broker at Coldwell Banker Bain. He said last month’s series of snowstorms and frigid temperatures had a negative impact on the typical momentum that builds at the beginning of the year.

For once the used home salespeople actually have a good excuse. The once-a-decade snow storm in February definitely caused an unusual decline in the pending sales numbers. That will probably carry forward to March closed sales numbers.

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):

February 2019	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	2,850	+1.1%	+109.7%
Closed Sales	1,417	+15.8%	+1.0%
SAAS (?)	1.07	-8.5%	-6.5%
Pending Sales	1,790	-6.0%	-5.5%
Months of Supply	2.01	-12.7%	+107.6%
Median Price*	$655,000	+7.4%	+0.8%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory was basically flat January to February, but thanks to the big gains in 2018 it was up 110 percent from last year. Sales seem to be starting to bounce back so I’m not sure we’ll see another year of big inventory gains in 2019. I hope we do.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings fell between January and February, and was down six percent from a year ago. I imagine that might be due to the snow storm as well. Hopefully we see the typical big spike in the March numbers.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales rose 16 percent between January and February, and turned in their first year-over-year gain since April 2018.

Pending sales fell six percent month-over-month and five percent year-over-year, but again that was probably mostly due to the two-week snow storm.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

It looks like the peak growth in inventory might be behind us now.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

I did say last month that “I doubt we’ll see this continue to fall.” And sure enough, it ticked back into the black in February.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

February 2019: $655,000
February 2018: $649,950
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

Here’s the article about these numbers from the Seattle Times: Market turnaround? King County home prices take biggest one-month jump ever

And here’s another good recent article from the Seattle Times that’s worth a read: With King County home prices picking up, are we in for another brutal spring for buyers? Maybe not

The post NWMLS: Home prices back in black, snow storm freezes out pending sales appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

January market stats were published by the NWMLS yesterday. The King County median price of single-family homes fell year-over-year for the first time since March of 2012. Inventory is way up from a year ago, but pending sales started increasing year-over-year, so buyers may be coming back.

Before we get into our detailed monthly stats, here’s a quick look at their press release.

Homebuyers resuming search amid improving inventory, attractive terms
Home buyers around Washington state are making their way back to the market, hoping to take advantage of improving inventory, attractive interest rates, and more approachable sellers, according to officials with Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
…
J. Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate, said buyers “came out of the woodwork” after the holidays, eager to take advantage of better housing conditions. “Areas close to the job centers are seeing improved affordability from spring 2018,” he said, attributing it to lower interest rates, strong job growth, and adjusted pricing.

I’m not a professional used-house salesman like Lennox, but to me it seems like not a great idea to compare your clients to insects crawling out of the walls in a dilapidated home. But hey, you do you Lennox.

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):

January 2019	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	2,820	-0.6%	+126.9%
Closed Sales	1,224	-28.2%	-2.8%
SAAS (?)	1.17	+24.9%	+16.1%
Pending Sales	1,904	+38.8%	+9.0%
Months of Supply	2.30	+38.3%	+133.4%
Median Price*	$610,000	-4.5%	-2.9%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory fell half a percent from December to January, but was up 127 percent from last year. The last time there were over 2,750 homes on the market at the end of January was in 2014.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings were up 13 percent from a year ago, and more than doubled from December to January.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales fell 28 percent between December and January. Last year over the same period closed sales dropped 40 percent. Year-over-year closed sales were down just three percent.

Pending sales shot up 39 percent from December to January, and were up nine percent year-over-year.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

Still a huge year-over-year increase in listings, but the growth did fall off a bit from December to January.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

Year-over-year home price changes dropped below zero for the first time in nearly seven years. I doubt we’ll see this continue to fall, but… maybe?

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

January 2019: $610,000
January 2018: $628,388
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

Here’s the article from the Seattle Times: Seattle-area home prices drop to lowest point in two years — down $116,000 since last spring

The post NWMLS: Home prices are falling and inventory is soaring, but pending sales are bouncing back appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Let’s take a look at our early January housing stats. Better late than never, right?

Overall the story is still improving for buyers. Inventory in January was comparable to April or May of last year, a huge increase. Sales were down from a year ago, and foreclosures are still nearly non-existent.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

First up, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County dropped 13 percent from December to January, but year-over-year listings are still up quite a bit, gaining 99 percent from January 2018.

In Snohomish County inventory fell 7 percent month-over-month, and the year-over-year growth was up 108 percent.

Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County fell 23 percent between December and January (a year ago they fell 30 percent over the same period), and were down 14 percent year-over-year.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish fell 22 percent month-over-month (the same drop as the same period last year) and were down 19 percent from a year earlier.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were down 16 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were up 33 percent from last year. Since the numbers are so low, these increases appear large in percentage terms, but the increase represents just 18 additional foreclosures in Snohomish county compared to the prior year.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were down 30 percent from a year ago.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post January Stats Preview: Inventory starts off 2019 with a three-month head start over 2018 appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

December market stats have been published by the NWMLS this afternoon. Year-over-year home price gains dropped to their lowest level since March 2012 as inventory skyrocketed, despite the fewest new listings ever in a month. The end of 2018 definitely set up 2019 to be an interesting year in the housing market.

The NWMLS press release hasn’t come out yet, so let’s get right to the data.

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):

December 2018	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	2,838	-29.4%	+143.0%
Closed Sales	1,704	-5.9%	-18.6%
SAAS (?)	0.94	-15.1%	+9.1%
Pending Sales	1,372	-28.8%	-6.0%
Months of Supply	1.67	-25.0%	+198.6%
Median Price*	$639,000	-0.8%	+0.6%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory fell 29 percent from November to December, and was up 143 percent from last year. This is the highest level of December inventory since 2013.

On the flip side, here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings were down 11 percent from a year ago, falling to their lowest level ever for any month of the year. It’s definitely interesting that standing inventory is increasing so quickly despite to few new listings hitting the market.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales fell six percent between November and December. Last year over the same period closed sales also dropped six percent. Year-over-year closed sales were down 19 percent and were at their lowest December level of the past seven years.

Pending sales were down 29 percent from November to December, and were down six percent year-over-year. The last time there were fewer pending sales in a December than there were last month was in December 2008.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

The continuing massive surge in active inventory has forced me to adjust the y-axis on this chart. Again. We’ve hit new all-time records each of the last five months.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

Year-over-year home price changes edged down again from November to December, to the lowest level since March 2012, which was the last month that prices were falling year-over-year.

Finally, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

November 2018: $639,000
November 2017: $635,000
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

So far there’s no story on the December data in the Seattle Times yet. I’ll update this post later after they publish their story.

Update: Here’s the Seattle Times story: Seattle area’s topsy-turvy home market ends 2018 with Eastside prices falling over the year

The post NWMLS: Home price gains vanish as sales continue to slip appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Now that 2018 is completely over, let’s take our first look at the December housing market stats for King and Snohomish counties.

It’s pretty much the same story we’ve seen the past few months, which is good news for buyers: The number of home sales is falling and the number of homes on the market is climbing quite a bit. Foreclosures are still very rare.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

First up, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County dropped 29 percent from November to December. Year-over-year listings are still soaring, up 143 percent from December 2017, another new all-time high year-over-year gain, passing the record of 114 percent that was set just a month earlier.

In Snohomish County inventory fell month-over-month 25 percent, and the year-over-year growth also hit a new all-time record, growing 111 percent.

Note that the Estately inventory data feed seems to be having some trouble, so these preliminary numbers may be off by more than usual. I’m looking into that.

Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County fell 5 percent between November and December (a year ago they fell 4 percent over the same period), and were down 22 percent year-over-year.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish fell 5 percent month-over-month (versus a 1 percent decline in the same period last year) and were down 18 percent from a year earlier.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were up 12 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were up 23 percent from last year. Since the numbers are so low, these increases appear large in percentage terms, but the increase represents just 10 additional foreclosures in each county compared to the prior year.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were up 13 percent from a year ago.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post December Stats Preview: Highest December listings since 2013 appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

November market stats were published by the NWMLS this morning. Home prices slipped to their lowest level since January, and inventory is declining seasonally but hit its highest November level since 2011. Both pending and closed sales continued to slip from last year as well. November’s year-over-year listing growth was an all-time record at a whopping 114 percent.

The NWMLS press release hasn’t come out yet, so let’s get right to the data.

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):

November 2018	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	4,020	-17.5%	+113.9%
Closed Sales	1,811	-11.7%	-18.6%
SAAS (?)	1.10	-14.5%	+26.3%
Pending Sales	1,926	-16.1%	-13.0%
Months of Supply	2.22	-6.5%	+162.7%
Median Price*	$643,913	-4.0%	+2.1%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory fell 18 percent from October to November, and was up 114 percent from last year. We went from the all-time lowest November inventory a year ago to a seven-year high in 2018.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings were up three percent from a year ago and continued the usual seasonal decline month-over-month.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales fell 12 percent between October and November. Last year over the same period closed sales dropped nine percent. Year-over-year closed sales were down 19 percent.

Pending sales were down 16 percent from October to November, and were down 13 percent year-over-year.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

The massive surge in active inventory has forced me to adjust the y-axis on this chart. We’ve hit new all-time records each of the last four months.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

Year-over-year home price changes edged down again from October to November, to its lowest level since August 2014.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

November 2018: $643,913
November 2017: $630,750
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

The Seattle Times hasn’t published their story yet. I’ll update this post when they do.

Update: Here’s the story from the Seattle Times: Seattle-area home prices drop again, with 6-month decline among largest ever

And here’s the NWMLS press release: Home buyers have “window of opportunity” with shift to more balanced market

The post NWMLS: Home listing inventory skyrocketed in November as sales and prices both fell further appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

With November in the books, let’s have a look at all of our early indicators for the month.

It’s pretty much the same story as last month: Home sales volume was down considerably from a year ago and the number of homes on the market is up dramatically, nearly doubling from a year ago. Foreclosures are still very rare, although the number of notices did tick up a bit month-over-month.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

First up, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County dropped 19 percent from October to November. Year-over-year listings are soaring, and up 111 percent from November 2017, another new all-time high year-over-year gain, easily besting the record of 86 percent that was set just a month earlier.

In Snohomish County inventory fell month-over-month 15 percent, and the year-over-year growth also hit a new all-time record, growing 87 percent.

Next, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County fell 15 percent between October and November (a year ago they fell 8 percent over the same period), and were down 22 percent year-over-year.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish fell 10 percent month-over-month (versus a 14 percent decline in the same period last year) and were down 15 percent from a year earlier.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were up 27 percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were up 8 percent from last year. Since the numbers are so low, these increases appear large in percentage terms, but in King County the increase represents just 20 additional foreclosures.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were down 52 percent from a year ago, to the lowest level since October 2003.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post November Stats Preview: Double the inventory, double the fun appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Down 1.3 percent August to September
Up 8.4 percent YOY.
Up 30.2 percent from the July 2007 peak

Last year at this time prices were down 0.3 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were up 12.9 percent.

Seattle’s streak of dead last for month-over-month price changes increased to three months in September. Quite a flip from the four-month streak at #1 earlier in the year.

Seattle is still at #3 in year-over-year price growth, but falling fast. Two metro areas had higher price growth from a year earlier in September: Las Vegas at 13.5 percent and San Francisco at 9.9 percent.

Here’s a Tableau Public interactive graph of the year-over-year change for all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Check and un-check the boxes on the right to modify which cities are showing:

Here’s how the month-over-month price changes looked for all twenty markets:

Hit the jump for the rest of our monthly Case-Shiller charts, including the interactive chart of raw index data for all 20 metro areas.

Just three metro areas hit new all-time highs in September (down from 11 in July and 6 in August): Atlanta, Charlotte, and Cleveland. Those are definitely not the typically “hot” markets.

Here’s the interactive chart of the raw HPI for all twenty metro areas through September.

Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve metro areas whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.

In the 134 months since the 2007 price peak in Seattle prices are up 30.2 percent.

Lastly, let’s see how Seattle’s current prices compare to the previous bubble inflation and subsequent burst. Note that this chart does not adjust for inflation.

The latest few data points in this chart definitely look quite a bit different than recent years’ seasonal flattening. To be honest it looks a lot more like it did in late 2007…

Here’s the Seattle Times’ story about this month’s numbers: Metro Seattle home prices falling at fastest rate in U.S.

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2018-11-27)

The post Case-Shiller: Seattle is #1! …for month-over-month price declines appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

October market stats were published by the NWMLS today. Home prices were basically flat from September, and inventory dropped a bit but was up dramatically from 2017. Sales continued to slip from last year as well. September’s year-over-year listing growth was an all-time record at 68 percent, but October’s 86 percent blew that out of the water.

The NWMLS hasn’t published their press release yet so let’s just get right to the data.

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):

October 2018	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	4,873	-6.5%	+86.1%
Closed Sales	2,052	+11.9%	-15.9%
SAAS (?)	1.29	-25.5%	+24.8%
Pending Sales	2,295	+2.3%	-16.8%
Months of Supply	2.37	-16.5%	+121.3%
Median Price*	$670,999	+0.4%	+6.5%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory fell seven percent from September to October, and was up 86 percent from last year. Before this year, the highest year-over-year inventory gain was 61.3 percent way back in February 2008. The number of homes on the market was at its highest October level since 2011.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings were up five percent from a year ago, but began the usual seasonal decline month-over-month.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales rose 12 percent between September and October. Last year over the same period closed sales dropped three percent. Year-over-year closed sales were down 16 percent.

Pending sales were up two percent from September to October, and were down 17 percent year-over-year.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

For the last few months we’ve been charting new territory in year-over-year inventory growth.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

Year-over-year home price changes edged down from September to October.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

October 2018: $670,999
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

The Seattle Times hasn’t posted their story yet. I’ll probably update this post when they do.

The post NWMLS: Inventory up big from 2017, sales slip appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

For the article I spoke with a Redfin Seattle agent who has had some interesting conversations already with buyers…

“From my conversations, it seems that some would-be buyers are waiting on the sidelines for the announcement of where HQ2 will be located,” said Seattle Redfin agent Jessie Culbert. “If they work for Amazon now, they may decide to relocate to be closer to family and friends. If they don’t work for Amazon and plan to stay in Seattle, they may wait to see how additional inventory on the market could impact pricing.”
…
Once Amazon announces the location of its HQ2 and begins hiring there in earnest, it will inevitably slow the Seattle housing market, at a time when inventory is already on the rise and a historic rental building boom is leading to a surging apartment vacancy rate.
…
So what could Amazon HQ2 mean for Seattle? Let’s consider some hypotheticals on opposite ends of the spectrum…

We touched on it a little in the post, but I think we’re already starting to see these effects in the Seattle area, and HQ2 may be a big part of why Seattle has slowed down so suddenly this year compared to many other markets.

Read the whole post over on the Redfin blog.

The post Amazon HQ2 may already be turning Seattle into a buyers market appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Now that October is behind us, let’s have a look at all of our early indicators for the month.

Home sales volume was down considerably from a year ago in both King and Snohomish County last month, dipping over 16 percent in both counties. Meanwhile, the number of homes on the market began the usual seasonal declines, but were still up 83 percent in King County and 63 percent in Snohomish. Foreclosures are still very rare, although the number of notices did tick up a bit month-over-month.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

Rapidly increasing inventory coupled with continued year-over-year drops in sales is still the biggest news in this month’s data. First up, let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County rose 14 percent between September and October (a year ago they were basically flat over the same period), but were still down 16 percent year-over-year.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish inched up three percent month-over-month (versus a 2 percent decline in the same period last year) but were still down 19 percent from a year earlier.

Next, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County fell eight percent from September to October. Year-over-year listings were up a whopping 83 percent from October 2017, which is easily a new all-time high year-over-year gain, crushing the record of 68 percent that was set just one month prior in September.

In Snohomish County inventory fell month-over-month seven percent, but the year-over-year growth also hit a new all-time record at 63 percent.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were down 2 percent from a year ago but Snohomish County foreclosure notices were up 34 percent from last year. I wouldn’t read much into that increase though, since we’re talking about a jump from 50 notices last year to 67 this year.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were down 61 percent from a year ago, to the lowest level since October 2003.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post October Stats Preview: Inventory nearly doubles from 2017 appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

If you aren’t familiar with the Czech Sky, read this 2010 post.

The Czech Sky is still found in many Seattle-area home listings today. Here are just a few:

• 6522 34th Ave SW
• 934 N 78th St
• 13315 3rd Ave NE

The post “Modern Seattle home for sale with photoshopped Czech Sky” appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Down 1.6 percent July to August
Up 9.6 percent YOY.
Up 31.9 percent from the July 2007 peak

Last year at this time prices were down 0.3 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were up 13.2 percent.

After falling to dead last in month-over-month price changes in July, Seattle continued its streak at #20 in August. This follows a four-month streak at #1 earlier in the year.

Seattle is still near the top in year-over-year price growth though. Two metro areas had higher price growth from a year earlier in August: Las Vegas at 13.9 percent and San Francisco at 10.6 percent. However, if the current trend continues for a few more months, Seattle won’t be near the top for long…

Here’s a Tableau Public interactive graph of the year-over-year change for all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Check and un-check the boxes on the right to modify which cities are showing:

Here’s how the month-over-month price changes looked for all twenty markets:

Hit the jump for the rest of our monthly Case-Shiller charts, including the interactive chart of raw index data for all 20 metro areas.

Six metro areas hit new all-time highs in August (down from 11 in July): Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Charlotte, and Cleveland.

Here’s the interactive chart of the raw HPI for all twenty metro areas through August.

Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve metro areas whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.

In the 133 months since the 2007 price peak in Seattle prices are up 31.9 percent.

Lastly, let’s see how Seattle’s current prices compare to the previous bubble inflation and subsequent burst. Note that this chart does not adjust for inflation.

Here’s the Seattle Times’ story about this month’s numbers: Average Seattle-area home selling for below list price for first time in 4 years

That headline seems to have been inspired by something I tweeted yesterday morning (with data from the Redfin Data Center):

One of these things
is not like the others,
One of these things
just doesn't belong. pic.twitter.com/i4q537vxQe

— Seattle Bubble (@SeattleBubble) October 29, 2018

(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2018-10-30)

The post Case-Shiller: Seattle home prices fell more than anywhere else between July and August. appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

We haven’t taken a look at my “Residential Real Estate Heat Index” for King County single-family homes and condos since the fourth quarter 2017 data, so let’s see how it has moved through 2018 so far.

Wow, that’s quite the reversal this year from the recent trend. After hitting a massive all-time high in the fourth quarter of 2017, just three quarters later the index has fallen to its lowest point since the first quarter of 2012. Coincidentally, the first quarter of 2012 was when home prices in the Seattle area hit their lowest post-bubble point.

This measure is typically highly seasonal, peaking in the fourth quarter most years due to the low number of listings. However, after dropping down to earth in the first quarter, the heat index usually stays fairly stable through the first three quarters of the year. Not so this year. The first quarter was down slightly year-over-year, then the second quarter hit a three-year low, and the third quarter was the lowest level in over six years.

I still don’t think this decline portends another big bursting bubble anything like what we saw 2008 through 2012, since the foundation of the market is much stronger than it was ten years ago. That said, it is definitely becoming very difficult to ignore the dramatic signs of the slowing market here in the Seattle area.

Next year is going to be very interesting.

The post Real Estate Heat Index plummets in 2018—now at lowest level in over six years appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

With September’s stats in hand, let’s look at broader Puget Sound area. Here’s the latest update to our “Around the Sound” statistics for King, Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Island, Skagit, and Whatcom counties.

First up, a summary table:

The biggest gains in new listings and active inventory are still in King County. Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap and Thurston all also saw some decent gains in inventory, but in Island, Skagit, and Whatcom inventory was flat or still down. Meanwhile, closed sales are falling everywhere but Whatcom.

Here’s a look at new listings across the region:

Only King, Snohomish, and Thurston saw year-over-year gains in new listings, while Pierce, Kitsap, Island, Skagit, and Whatcom all continued to fall.

Next up: Active inventory.

Inventory was up sizeably from year earlier in King, Snohomish, and Thurston. It also edged up in Pierce and Kitsap. Meanwhile, inventory in Whatcom county has been down double-digits for the past five months in a row.

Here’s the chart of median prices compared to a year ago. Island County actually saw a slight decrease in prices, but they were still up everywhere else.

Sales are now significantly declining pretty much everywhere but the furthest-out counties. Skagit saw just a 3.9 percent drop and Whatcom saw a 5.4 percent gain, but every other county had double-digit declines.

We’re still in a major sellers’ market… but the trend looks at least somewhat hopeful for buyers, with every county except Whatcom inching closer to that magical “balanced market” number of six months of supply.

In summary: The inventory surge has spread outside of King County, as sales slow and listings pile up. The one notable exception to this trend so far is up north in Whatcom County. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on up there, but for some reason the market up there is not cooling down this year the way it is pretty much everywhere else.

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.

The post Around the Sound: Inventory growth, sales declines spread outside of King County appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

I’m still not yet comfortable saying that we’re going to see year-over-year price drops soon, but looking at the trend in this data I wouldn’t be surprised if we do before the end of 2018.

The post Home prices fell more between May and September this year than any previous year appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

September market stats were published by the NWMLS today. Home prices have leveled off as sales continue to slip and inventory piles up. Year-over-year listing growth hit its highest level ever as the number of homes on the market reached its highest level since January 2012.

Before we get into our detailed monthly stats, here’s a quick look at their press release.

Balance “finally returning” to housing market as buyers welcome more choices, moderating prices
Housing inventory continued to improve during September while the pace of sales slowed in many counties served by Northwest Multiple Listing Service. “Balance is finally returning to the market, and with it, slowing home price growth,” stated OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate.
…
J. Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate, encouraged would-be buyers to “put extra focus on October,” which he described as the last great month for new listings until March 2019. “Over the winter, new monthly resale listings will lower by approximately 50 percent compared to summer months.” He also noted interest rates, currently in the upper 4 percent, are projected to rise in the coming months.
…
Despite slower sales, Northwest MLS spokespeople remain upbeat.

“The housing market close to the job centers has gone from a historic extreme-frenzy market in the spring down a few levels of hotness to a strong level of pending sales activity for new listings,” said Scott.

When is J. Lennox Scott ever not “upbeat” about the prospects for the housing market?

Trick question! The answer is never!

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):

September 2018	Number	MOM	YOY	Buyers	Sellers
Active Listings	5,213	+11.7%	+67.9%
Closed Sales	1,833	-23.1%	-27.0%
SAAS (?)	1.73	+20.5%	+47.9%
Pending Sales	2,244	-7.7%	-18.0%
Months of Supply	2.84	+45.3%	+130.2%
Median Price*	$668,000	-0.1%	+6.9%

Here’s the graph of inventory with each year overlaid on the same chart.

Inventory rose twelve percent from August to September, and was up 67.9 percent from last year. Before this year, the highest year-over-year inventory gain was 61.3 percent way back in February 2008. The last time there were over 5,000 homes on the market at the end of September was in 2012.

Here’s the chart of new listings:

New listings were up eight percent from a year ago, and edged up slightly from August to September, which is fairly typical for this time of year.

Here’s your closed sales yearly comparison chart:

Closed sales fell 23 percent between August and September. Last year over the same period closed sales dropped 10 percent. Year-over-year closed sales were down 27 percent—the largest drop since November 2010.

Pending sales were down eight percent from August to September, and were down 18 percent year-over-year.

Here’s the supply/demand YOY graph. “Demand” in this chart is represented by closed sales, which have had a consistent definition throughout the decade (unlike pending sales from NWMLS).

We’re now in totally uncharted territory for listings. We’ve never seen them growing this quickly year-over-year.

Here’s the median home price YOY change graph:

Year-over-year home price changes edged up from August to September, only because last year prices fell in September but this year they were basically flat, as you can see in the next chart.

And lastly, here is the chart comparing King County SFH prices each month for every year back to 1994 (not adjusted for inflation).

September 2018: $668,000
July 2007: $481,000 (previous cycle high)

The post NWMLS: Inventory continues to climb as sales slow appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Redfin CEO Sees ‘Moment of Reckoning’ in Seattle Real Estate Market

Many people in this middle-class town have now been priced out. We are probably past peak Seattle. For the first time this year we saw more people using our website to leave Seattle than to come to Seattle. It has been a moment of reckoning for this town… Some folks have said, ‘enough is enough.'”

The post Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman: “We are probably past peak Seattle.” appeared first on Seattle Bubble.

Home sales volume was at its lowest September level in six years for both King and Snohomish County last month, dipping over 22 percent from a year ago. As a result, the number of homes on the market hit its highest point since early 2012. Foreclosures are still at all-time lows.

Now that September is wrapped up, let’s have a look at all of our early indicators for the month.

Here’s the snapshot of all the data as far back as my historical information goes, with the latest, high, and low values highlighted for each series:

Rapidly declining sales is the biggest thing that jumps out to me in this month’s data, so let’s look at total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with King County:

Sales in King County fell twenty-four percent between August and September (a year ago they fell fourteen percent over the same period), and were down twenty-seven percent year-over-year. That’s the largest year-over-year drop since May 2009—just eight months after the financial collapse kicked off in September 2008.

Here’s a look at Snohomish County Deeds, but keep in mind that Snohomish County files Warranty Deeds (regular sales) and Trustee Deeds (bank foreclosure repossessions) together under the category of “Deeds (except QCDS),” so this chart is not as good a measure of plain vanilla sales as the Warranty Deed only data we have in King County.

Deeds in Snohomish dropped nineteen percent month-over-month (versus a drop of thirteen percent in the same period last year) and were down twenty-two percent from a year earlier.

Next, let’s look at our inventory charts, updated with previous month’s inventory data from the NWMLS.

The number of homes on the market in King County rose nine percent from August to September. Year-over-year listings were up 64.6 percent from September 2017, which is down just a bit from the all-time high year-over-year gain of 65.5 percent that was set just a month earlier in August.

In Snohomish County the month-over-month inventory increase was smaller at six percent, but the year-over-year growth was still sizable at 35 percent.

Hit the jump for the foreclosure charts.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

Foreclosure notices in King County were down twenty-six percent from a year ago and Snohomish County foreclosure notices were down thirty percent from last year.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures for King County, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Trustee Deeds were down forty-nine percent from a year ago. The only time there have been fewer trustee deeds than we’ve seen during 2018 was in late 2003.

Note that most of the charts above are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County and Snohomish County public records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the preview, drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.

The post September Stats Preview: Sales drop over 25 percent from 2017 as listings continue to pile up appeared first on Seattle Bubble.