King County Real Estate Market Update | March 2021

The five numbers that we saw increase were pending sales, closed sales, median sales price, average sales price, and the percentage of list price increase. And so what we saw was a decrease in all of the buyer favorable categories essentially, and we saw an increase in the more seller favorable categories. So the buyer seller market dynamic has been heavily in the seller’s favor for most of 2020 and all of 2021 so far. But what we’re seeing is it’s continuing to move even more if that’s even possible towards the sellers here. And the big highlights here for February as we’re looking at the report from the MLS, is 2021 February stats, we saw the median sales price in King County’s up 10.1% overall, and the average price up 11.3%. This is about half the increase that we saw in Snohomish County. So if you haven’t watched that video, you should take a look because the market’s even hotter in Snohomish County.

The percentage of list price, we’re seeing houses selling on average, 5.6% above asking price in all of King County. And we’re seeing about a half a month of inventory in King County. So about two weeks of supply, meaning if nobody puts a house on the market in the next two weeks, they’re all gonna be gone. A few of the major cities in King County that I service are blowing away the county averages. As we look at Bellevue, we’re seeing almost $1.4 million median sales price in Bellevue. And homes are selling on average 10% above asking price. In Seattle. This is the one that kind of legs behind. Most people think Seattle when they think of the metro area, which it is the largest percentage of the home sales, but median sales price wise, 7 79, almost seven 80, so considerably below Bellevue. And these other east

Side cities in King County, Kirkland, 1.35 million. And homes are selling on average 8.4% above asking price Redmond 1.278 million, and trailing these other beautiful east side suburbs. We have shoreline just north of Seattle that’s sandwiched in between Edmonds where I live. And Seattle, we have a median sales price of $667,450, less than half of what we’re seeing in Bellevue and an average of 6% above asking price. So homes are still selling quickly and for more, but not nearly what we’re seeing over on the east side. Before we finish up this update, I wanna also spend a little bit of time on the condo market. Unlike Snohomish County Condos in King County are a lot bigger portion of the market, and mainly the majority of the condos are found in Seattle and Bellevue, a good two thirds of the condos. So when we see we had over 773 new listings in King County last month for condos, over 400 of those were in Seattle and Bellevue.

When we look at the days on market, we’re seeing an average of 40 days on market in King County for condos. And the median number, because I think this is important too, the media numbers 13 days on market for, so things are not selling quite as quickly as they are on the residential side. But interestingly, Seattle’s dragging down this number considerably. So Seattle has over 300 of the 773 condo listings, and the Seattle listings are taking an average of 60 days to sell median being 43 days. When we look at Bellevue and we’re closer to a hundred, but even still less than a hundred condo listings, we’re seeing an average of 35 days on market in a median days of 10 on the market. So Bellevue’s actually beating the King County average, but Seattle is by far pulling it up. And because it has such a large percentage of the condos, we’re seeing that weighted.

So if you’re outside of Seattle and you have a condo in King County, you’re most likely gonna be seeing more competition, a little bit higher price on your condo. But if you’re in Seattle and mainly downtown, because that’s where a large percentage of those condos are, people aren’t as excited about the downtown area right now, Belltown downtown, and that’s causing the condos to go for less and to take a little bit longer to sell. Wrapping up this King County market update, I’ve got a few thoughts. One thought here is for the sellers, one thought is for the buyers sellers, this is your window. The next couple months is going to be your window for this year at least. It usually is to maximize the sales price for your house and capitalize on the competition. And I mean, for February, we, we haven’t seen this much competition on houses in February, ever. We’ve, we’ve had more, I mean, 13% above asking price

In Redmond in February. I mean, what’s it gonna look like in March, in April and May? I think it’s gonna stay the same. It’s gonna be even worse, is my guess, unless interest rates change. Because what happens is the buyers start getting frustrated and they miss out, and they start getting crazier and crazier. And there’s always a few people that are willing to be crazier. So unless interest rates dramatically increase, which they have been going up a little bit lately, or a whole bunch of new houses come on the market, which I do have some more listings coming up in the next few weeks, which is great. I love having listings right now, I’ll be honest. But I think we’re not gonna see enough listings to keep up with the demand. So if you’re a seller and you’re thinking about selling, this is, I’d say sooner rather than later, is gonna be your best bet because what I think’s going to happen later in the year is it will slow down.

I think we will see more inventory, which is going to mean that buyers aren’t necessarily all competing for the same three houses. I mean, I mentioned in my Snohomish County market update in the city of Mill Creek, there were only four houses for sale in an entire city. So that’s the kind of market that buyers are having to shop in, which is great for sellers because everybody’s looking at your house and making an offer on your house. But when there are more houses, you’re not gonna get that kind of attention. No matter how good the marketing is. Now buyers, it’s really hard. I’ll be honest, I have had some difficult conversations with clients because they’ve lost, and when we do our buyer consultations, I meet with every buyer and do a buyer consultation. We walk through the process, we talk about what it takes to be successful.

And ultimately, as a buyer, you can only do your best. And there are sometimes a, there’s sometimes a buyer that has cash or is willing to outbid you. And at some point you have to tip your hat to people and, and right now, people are tipping their hat a lot more often because there’s only one winner when there’s 25, 26 offers. So if you’re a buyer, I think right now you need to be aggressive, educated and also patient because sometimes it does take a few swings before you connect. And that’s more of a baseball analogy for my baseball fans. But it’s important to stay the course. And as the year progresses, I think we’re gonna see more opportunities for buyers to be successful as we move throughout 2021. Thanks so much for watching my King County Real Estate market update for March, 2021. If you found value in this content, please give it a thumbs up. And if you’d like to engage with these videos and the content that I make on a regular basis, please subscribe to my channel.