Snohomish County Real Estate Market Update | May 2022

Hey y’all. Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates and this is my Snohomish County real estate market update for May 20, 22. Many people are asking me what’s going on in the real estate market right now, and people are always asking me that, as you can appreciate as a real estate agent in the area. But I think there’s a lot of fear going on right now. I think people are afraid of where house prices are and they know that interest rates have been going up, which is something I said was going to happen and it might have some impacts on affordability and pricing. But I wanna talk about the stats because I think it’s going to show what’s going on and paint a pretty good picture of what we’re seeing and we’ll talk about rates and all that kind of stuff as we go through the video.

But let’s jump into the stats here in Salish County because right now we saw some more listings come on the market this year than we did last year. 5.4% up, we saw more pending sales, 2.8% up pending sales. We did see slightly fewer close sales, 0.7%, very marginal difference, but houses are still selling super quick. So seven days on market, just like last year, prices though are up considerably. So median sales price is up 26.9%, 846,500 and the average sales price is up even more, 28.6%, up $925,548 in Snohomish County. People are still competing for houses in Snohomish County, 10.7% above asking price and the inventory has gone up a little bit, 22% up actually as far as houses, but the supply numbers only up 40%. But we went from 0.5 months to 0.7 months of supply. So it’s not like we saw a massive increase in supply.

Let’s talk about condos though here too. Stats I think I don’t share about the condos every month, but I do want to talk about them here. So we do this a few times a year. We talk about condos, we’re gonna look at year to date numbers though. Okay, so year to date we we’ve seen 13.5% fewer condos come on the market in Snohomish County. So I think people are holding their condos a little bit, right? We saw a decrease in pending sales even more, 17.2% we’ve seen a decrease as a result of closed sales. 10.6% days on market though even lower. 56.3% drop. We went from 16 days on market to seven days on market for condos in Snohomish County year to date so far, if we look at year to date, median sales price, $525,000 for a condo in Snohomish County, 29.6% up from the same time last year.

And then year to date, median sales price 615,029 and that’s 35.4% up and competition’s going up too. Okay, so we’re a single family, we’ve seen this inventory rising a little bit. We’ve seen inventory for condos half a month right now instead of 0.7. So even less condo inventory and that’s continuing to keep competition. 9.7% up above asking price. Okay, 9.7% above asking price for a condo in Snohomish County. What’s all this mean though? Okay, everybody wants to know the meaning behind all the data and you know, I don’t have a crystal ball, but what I’m seeing is we’re seeing houses come on the market just like we normally do this time of year. Inventory’s going up a little bit. We’re seeing interest rates in the mid fives and that’s higher than what people are used to. But I’ll tell you, if we look at any data over any long period of time, what we’ve seen recently is historically extremely low and we’re still seeing historically low interest rates, they’re just a little bit more normal.

But if we compare to the past few years, it seems like it’s really low, but we’re seeing interest rates more like we did in the early two thousands and they were even higher before that. So are we gonna return to eight to 10% interest rates? I don’t know, but this year could we see 6% or even a little bit more? Maybe some are predicting that and I think if we start to see interest rates get over the sixes, we might see a little bit more of a correction in pricing. But I do think right now what we’re witnessing over these next few months is going to be a little bit more of a flattening out, which we typically see in any year in the market in the Seattle area, but I just think it’s gonna come a little bit earlier and might be a little bit more severe.

So if rates keep climbing, we might see the market level off and maybe even decline a little bit. But I’m not predicting any kind of catastrophic correction to prices in housing. Now you might be seeing that in the stock market right now and historically housing prices will follow the stock market, um, a little bit delayed. Um, but at the same time the stock market’s way more volatile than the housing market. Last time we saw interest rates climb up like this in 2018 to 19, we saw home prices stall out a little bit and I mentioned earlier that I think the market can withstand these higher rates right now, but I think if we get into the sixes, we start to see some of those same issues. And what we saw then was a moderate decline in median sales price for eight months in a row and then we started to see the market pick back up again because ultimately what the government’s trying to do is slow us down a little bit, right?

Pump the brakes a little bit and when we have a good economy rates climb, right? And when the market is doing bad or the economy’s not doing as well, is when we see or where there’s more fear, we see the interest rates go lower. What we saw a lot of recently was this artificial lowering of the rates to incentivize home buying in activity because the real estate market’s a big part of our GDP every year. So what does this mean for the Snohomish County housing market for a seller? I mean, I think we’re probably hitting or close to hitting our peak prices for the year. So if you’re a seller or somebody thinking about selling, this is probably the time to cash in on new equity if you are maybe moving out at the area or have a reason to sell. But I think a lot of people are gonna hold onto their houses this year because interest rates have climbed.

So if you sell and you have a really good interest rate, now you’re buying with a higher one. So does that make sense? So I think some people are gonna make that choice to stay put rather than sell with higher interest rates. Uh, but at the same time, cashing in on your equity still makes sense as long as you have a plan for what’s next and you’re not just jumping laterally. I’ve had people ask me that recently, well, should I sell my house because I’ve got so much appreciation and then just buy something else similar to it, kind of reset the capital gains and trust me, I’ve had those same thoughts, but at the same time, is it really worth all that effort to just buy the same house again? Probably not, but it is nice to get the capital gains exemption, take the cash out.

So if that’s the goal and you don’t mind having an interest rate that’s double on your money, then be my guess. As we wrap up the update, I wanna highlight North Snohomish County because I always try to highlight some different areas in these updates and I wanna focus specifically on my Northern Snohomish County friends in Marysville. Last month we saw median sales prices, $680,000 up, 25.9% year over year. The average percent over asking price 8%, okay? Kind of keeping up with the median there, but a little bit more affordable. Marysville though, a little bit more affordable than the median as far as the county’s concerned. Same with Darrington, but considerably more affordable. 487,000, $38 up, 43.2% though, but considerably more affordable than the average Gold Bar. 525,000. Again, more affordable than the average Monroe, just about average now $859,649. Big jump, 27.4%. I think part of Monroe’s growth is new construction, right?

Newer houses, nicer houses, a little bit more money to buy those. Um, so if you’re looking for new construction, a lot of that’s being built in Monroe and it’s pushing out into some of these other areas like Stanwood and Lake Stevens. Granite falls up 4.7% year over year, $560,000 last month. Arlington 685,000, 31.2% jump, I think Arlington’s anticipating and all excited, like more jobs. Amazon Fulfillment Center, I think that’s a big part of it. Um, lake Stevens $775,000, median sales price, 23.5% jump. Again, another big place where a lot of new construction is happening and has happened recently. Stanwood another hotspot for new construction, $655,000 median sales price, 9.3% jump. And as we’re looking at these areas, most of them are a little bit more affordable than the average. And if you’re looking for a house that’s not almost a million dollars, this is kind of where you gotta look. You gotta go a little bit farther north and we help people all over Snohomish County and King County. Um, and specifically when we’re talking with clients that wanna purchase in this price range, if you want to be in that five to 750 $800,000 price range, you really gotta look outside of the core of Edmonds, Linwood, Mount Lake Terrace, et cetera, because you start to get a lot more expensive. So if we’re talking about places

That are a little closer in, maybe Everett is comparable, but most of the other areas in Southton, hoish County are quite a bit more expensive than you’re gonna find on the North end. Thanks so much for watching Meina, hoish County Real Estate Market update for May, 2022. I hope this video was valuable for you and if you made it all the way to the end, I know it was at least valuable enough to go ahead and get a thumbs up. And if you haven’t subscribed to the channel, please consider doing so. And one plug here. If you’re somebody thinking about buying or selling in Snohomish County and you don’t have an agent and you want to talk to somebody, please feel free to reach out.