King County Real Estate Market Update | November 2023

Hey y’all. Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my King County real Estate market update for November, 2023.

Well, as we expected, we’re starting to see fewer and fewer listings coming on the market in King County. In fact, month over month we’re down roughly 600 listings from October data versus the September data that we looked at last month. And if we look at the year over year numbers, we’re down about 16.8% from the same time last year. And something that I mentioned in previous updates, and I think will be the case here, is we’re going to see less of a gap between the drop-off and new listings than we have been seeing all year long. Part of it’s because this time of year we generally have fewer listings coming on the market, and another part of it is that we’re starting to, and we’re already starting to see fewer people selling their houses last year because of the interest rates.

So something to keep in mind as we continue on, but pending sales down in King County, 5.9% month over month, close sales we’re down 15.6%, so pretty similar to that 16.8% drop in new listings, the days on market, year over year down 14.8%. So 27 days on market last year, 23 days on market this year, last month though 22 days on market. So a slight uptick in the days on market in King County, king County. As far as the median sales price is concerned, pretty similar to last month. 900 was the median sales price in King County last month, 895,000 last month in October, so very similar last year, 901,500, so down 0.7% year over year. Pretty much the same amount from last month. Again, a very small difference in prices, but really things haven’t changed much in King County when it comes to prices over the past year. We saw things go up in the spring like we normally do, and then settle out here coming into the holidays. And something that we talked about earlier in the year is that we might see positive year over year numbers and at least things starting to look a little bit more stabilized. And that’s proving out here as we approach the end of the year. I don’t expect some big jump in prices or a big dip in prices. I think the real estate market has been fairly stagnant over the last year, again, with the normal seasonal ebbs and flows.

If you’re somebody that’s out there thinking about buying or selling, we’re still seeing houses selling for about the asking on average last month in King County, 100.3% of the listing price, which just means there’s a few houses selling over asking price, and many are selling for asking price. Inventory. We talked about the amount of listings coming on and the amount of listings coming off the supply is continuing to shrink as far as housing is concerned. In King County, it increased a little bit at the end of the summer and it’s been dwindling slowly. So we’re now at 2,323 homes. I’m reading that to you because last year we had 3,353 homes, 30.7% drop off in the amount of houses available heading into the holidays. And for all that followed along for a while, you know that we’re going to head into a time of very few listings coming on and that supply continuing to shrink. And last month we saw a small dip year over year, 11.1% fewer houses per buyer available.

So we’re continuing to see very similar trends that we’ve seen all year long, and that is fewer listings, fewer buyers, but over overall things are relatively stable. Houses are not sitting on the market for too long, but in some cases they are taking a little bit longer to sell. And as we’re heading into the holidays, it’s normal to have fewer listings coming on the market. And I mentioned in my most recent Seattle Real Estate Housing Market Watch, and those are weekly videos. So if you’re not following along with those, those are weekly snapshots of King and Snohomish County data. In that video I mentioned last week that as a buyer, this is when you want to get started with your home search or start taking some of those steps.

So if you’re thinking 2024 is going to be the year, this is when you want to engage with a real estate agent. This is when you want to work on your pre-approval so that you’re ready to either capitalize on an opportunity when the market’s a little slower during the holidays, or be ready when things start to pick up and not be jumping in when they’ve already picked up and being left behind. A lot of times the buyers that are ready to go heading into the new year are the ones that have the best results in the new year in 2024. So if you are that person, this is when I would start with that search.

If you’re a seller, this is when I would start to think about prepping my house. So if you’re thinking, you know what, I might want to sell early spring, I might even consider selling late winter this year, just a little trade secret. Typically that’s when things start building the most. And if I was going to be selling my house, I’d want to start doing some of that prep work now, maybe while I’ve got a little bit of time during the holidays, or at least making it a little less of a stressful experience. So again, buyers prepare, sellers prepare. This is a season when things slow in life. Generally speaking, for some it picks up, but either way, in the housing market, things tend to slow down, and this is an opportunity to be ready for when things pick up.

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