Seattle Real Estate Market Update | June 2017
Seattle set a new median sales price record for the 4th month straight! It will likely be a few more months until we see the typical seasonal cool-off, but we may not see one this year.
The Census Bureau reports that the Seattle metro area is adding roughly 1,100 new residents each week! (I misspoke in the video) Unless we see a major uptick in supply or a massive corrosion of consumer confidence, expect housing demand to continue pushing prices upwards.
[Video Transcript of June 2017 Seattle Real Estate Update]
Hey y’all. Zach with Real Property Associates here. Thank you so much for those that have been following these market updates. Now I believe this is number 13 that I’ve done. I’ve done … I started last May, and we’re now in June 2017, so thank you so much for your following of these videos. It’s interesting. I’ve been looking at YouTube and following. I don’t actually watch other people’s videos because I don’t want to pull information from them, and honestly, I want to be able to bring you value for myself, so I’m not really watching other people’s videos, but it’s interesting. I see people that’ll do one or two, and then they stop. You’re going to be able to count on these videos for a long time to come, so thanks so much for paying attention to them. I’ll keep making them, and if you have feedback I’d love it. If there are ways I can make these videos better, bring more value, please tell me. I want to make these videos really value packed in the short amount of time that we have together each month.
Now, June 2017, that’s where we find ourselves right now. The Seattle real estate market is the hottest it’s ever been. $725,000 was our new median sales price record last month. That’s the fourth month in a row that we’ve seen growth. We’ve seen a new record. So I expect us to keep going. I really do. We’ve got a few more months. Last year, June sales, so in July it would have been when they were reported, but the June sales were the highest of the whole entire year. I expect we’ve got a few more months of this probably of the climb in median sales price, then we might see a little bit of a level off, typically end of summer, early fall is a little bit slower time as far as buyers looking because they’ve got settled it, school’s starting, vacations et cetera, et cetera, so I really do expect these next few months we’ll continue to see that price climb.
The suburbs aren’t faring any better. We’re still seeing … We saw 17% in Lynnwood, growth year over year. Seattle we were 16% year over year. I remember at the beginning of the year I said, “We’re going to see 10% to 12% growth, that was my prediction, and we’re at 10.3% right now over the last 12 months, so these next few months if we keep seeing this price go up, I really do think we’re going to hit that number, 10% to 12% target, so stayed tuned for that one.
Now a lot of you have been asking me about the Seattle real estate market. Can this keep going? I’ve had multiple people that were a little bit nervous recently when I talked to them about buying in this market. Now I’ve myself bought in this market, and we’re actually standing in my backyard at my new house, so I understand a little bit of the trepidation. I personally and professionally think we’ve still got another year, maybe two, of this crazy price growth, and the biggest reason I think that is because Seattle is a fast growing city.
Now the Seattle Times reported, and they were pulling info from the Census Bureau, that Seattle is rated as the number one fastest growing city, large city, in the U.S., number one, and the Census Bureau reported that from 2015 to 2016, June to June, the numbers just came out, we are looking at about 1100 residents every single month moving to the Seattle metro area. That’s a lot of people. Percentage-wise, it’s not in the top 10 on the charts, but a lot of people moving into the area and really there’s nowhere for people to go.
There’s already a shortage of inventory and bringing in more people doesn’t help with that problem, so I expect that we’re still going to continue to see the high demand for housing and the low inventory and until … Well, unless there is something catastrophic that we can’t predict, right, and unless there is something that nobody’s foreseeing, we’ve got a few more years of this at least, and so if I was you, I would get into the market now if I was a buyer. I would be getting into the market. If I was a seller, honestly, I would hold on to my house unless I was planning to relocate.
There’s always situations where you need to sell, or selling’s a good idea, so I’m happy to talk about those, but if I was a seller, I probably would hold onto my house unless I had plans to go elsewhere. Thanks again for watching these videos. Again like I said, please let me know if there are ways I can bring more value. I want to always bring value to you. Thanks again, and we’ll talk soon.
