Seattle Real Estate Market Update | November 2020
Video Summary
Here are my latest thoughts on the Seattle Real Estate Market:
The Seattle real estate market is continuing to go against the “seasonal slow down” trend with the same median sales prices we typically see in the spring when the market is at its hottest. In the counties I serve, King and Snohomish County, we normally see fewer listings in October, November, and December. However, we are seeing an increase in listings coming on the market and more and more people are buying and competing in bidding wars. What this means for buyers and sellers, is that we are in a competitive real estate market. With continued lower interest rates, buyers are able to buy considerably more house, upgrade, or even purchase a better house for their first home. For sellers, your house most likely will sell within one to two weeks when priced correctly for the market.
- Last month’s market update – Seattle Real Estate Market Update October 2020
Video Transcript
Hey y’all. Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my Seattle Real Estate Market Update for November 2020. The election’s behind us, the stock market’s booming, but you didn’t come here to hear me talk about either of those things so we’ll move on to talking about the real estate market. Before we jump into talking about the Seattle real estate market stats, we’re going to talk about a story from last month. Sagar and Kanika are first-time homebuyers that just purchased a home in Magnolia working with me. They also met me on YouTube right here and were watching these updates for a few years before purchasing, so you might be able to relate to them. You might be watching these updates as well, getting educated and learning more about what it takes to buy a house, and if you want to talk a little bit more about that, feel free to reach out.
Really quick, before we jump off this story topic, I also want to give a huge shout out to my assistant, Rachel. She just purchased her first home as well, so really excited for her. Now, it’s time for the stats. In the city of Seattle last month, so October 2020 stats, we saw a median sales price in the city of Seattle of $799,000, and that’s the same median sales price we saw last month if you were to go watch the previous video. And interestingly, the prices right now are the same as they were back in April. We saw a 799 median sales price in April as well. And typically, April, May, June is the hottest time in the real estate market but this year, we’re seeing those same prices that we typically see in the springtime, the hot time of the year, in the fall.
And most of the time in these updates, around October, November, December, I start talking about this “seasonal slowdown,” and some markets experience this a lot more drastically than others because of weather and things like that. In our area, typically there are fewer houses coming on the market during the holidays, and there are fewer houses that are selling, and right now we’re completely bucking that trend. Let’s take a look at a few of these other stats. New listings in the city of Seattle up 40.5% year over year, the pending sales are up 27.6% year over year, and the closed sales are up 37.3% year over year. And as we look at the closed sales, 982 closed residential purchases in the city of Seattle last month. That’s a record high, at least as far as the stats I have available to me date back. So, going back to 2006 record high amount of closed sales in a month, and we’re talking about October.
Even with the record number of new houses coming on the market this time of year, we have so many buyers in market that the pending sales closed sales are keeping the inventory numbers down, so we’re still hovering at 1.6 months of supply, available homes, in the market, which around the country is extremely low and is still making our market a seller’s market versus a buyer’s market. As a result, houses are selling in seven days, that’s the median number, and they are selling on average a few percent above the asking price.
As we look at King County and Snohomish County, the two counties that I service and the ones that are surrounding the Seattle area, we’re seeing similar trends. We’re seeing lots of houses coming on the market, more than normal. We’re seeing lots more closed sales, pending sales, and the median sales price is also up considerably. Last month, median sales price in King County was up 11.9% year over year at 750,000. And as we look at Snohomish County, we’re seeing a 17.1% increase year over year in the median sales price at 574,000.
What this means for buyers and sellers is that we’re in a super competitive real estate market, even in the fall. And typically, things do slow down this time of year. It’s a little easier to get into a house. There’s usually fewer offers on the table, but right now, because of the amount of buyers that are looking to purchase, and I’d say it’s mainly because of the low interest rates, buyers are able to buy considerably more house than they would be able to buy if interest rates were higher. So, with the lower interest rates, they’re able to purchase a bigger, better home and upgrade potentially, or even purchase a better house for their first purchase. So, people are out there looking to buy and that’s causing a continued seller’s market here in the Seattle area.
