Seattle Real Estate Market Update | March 2022
Video Summary
The February stats for the Seattle/Bellevue area are showing the seller’s market heating up more. This could be an early indication of a very competitive market in the Summer. Generally, we don’t start to see this sort of action until late Spring.
- Last month’s market update – Seattle Real Estate Market Update February 2022
Video Transcript
Sad day in Seattle, as we jump into this market update, Russell Wilson was just traded to the Denver Broncos. I guess it’s pending a physical or some kind of no trade clause waiver, but it looks like our beloved quarterback is going to the Denver Broncos.
Super random fact here today. But on my mind, as we start this market update, Zach McDonald, your real estate agent here guys, and we’re going to go through our market update for March 2022. And in this update, we’re going to start it off… Well, aside from the Russell Wilson commentary, just like we do with all the other updates, we’re going to talk about a recent client story. We are going to talk about the market stats for Seattle and now Bellevue. And we are going to talk about a few applications if you’re a buyer or a seller towards the end of the video. This month’s client story features the [Neebless 00:00:56] family. And a couple years ago, less than two years ago, they purchased a house with us in [Kirkland 00:01:02] and they did a fun welcome home video. They were really excited to be moving here from Lake Arrowhead, California, and after a very short amount of time here, part of it was work related.
Part of it was just missing home. They decided to sell their house in Kirkland and move back to beautiful Lake Arrowhead, California. Happens to be one of the very few places that I’ve ever been in California. So a little bit random fact for you, but these clients bought this house in Kirkland for $787000. And they did put a lot of effort. A lot of it was sweat equity into the house. In less than two years, they sold this same house for $1.29 million, that’s $503,000 more than they paid for it less than two years ago. Needless to say, they were super excited to be able to sell their house for so much more than asking price. And we’re obviously excited for them being able to move back to California and get back to life as they knew it before. All right, let’s jump into the stats, which is why I know many of you watch these videos and subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Quick note, if you have not subscribed yet, please just pause, go ahead and hit that subscribe button right now. In Seattle, we set a new median sales price record, $900,000 in the city of Seattle. And this is for residential sales at the end of February 2022, 16.1% up year over year. And I mentioned in my 2022 predictions, one of the things that I mentioned was that Seattle was going to pick up, the market in Seattle was going to become a little bit more competitive. Prices were going to start to climb in Seattle where the last few years have been a little bit more stagnant. And I talked about the fact that Seattle was going to become cheap all of a sudden and inexpensive, which is what happened about 10 years ago. And we’re seeing that again, the suburbs have all benefited from COVID in people’s desire for a different type of house.
And now Seattle’s inexpensive again, and people are starting to buy in Seattle because it’s significantly cheaper than buying on the east side and in some of the suburbs. Speaking of the east side, Bellevue’s median sales price last month was $2,110,609. Okay. Super specific number , 50.2% up year over year. Giant number. Okay. Bellevue has over the last few years been exponentially growing. It seems like that’s actually a little bit metaphorical, but Seattle has not nearly kept pace with Bellevue. And I think this year we’re going to start to see a little bit more of a movement back to Seattle, or at least a more interest in Seattle. Again, because homes are quite a bit more affordable in Seattle versus Bellevue on the east side. Last month, we started to see more listings coming on the market in Seattle and in Bellevue, and really across Snohomish and King counties.
And what’s been happening is we’ve had more homes coming on the market than normal. So people will ask, well, it just seems like there’s not enough houses coming on the market for all the buyers. And that is true because there are a lot of buyers, but really if we look at the numbers, we’re seeing more than normal coming on in Snohomish county and King county and that’s reflected here in the Seattle and Bellevue numbers that I’m looking at this month. It’s not that we have fewer houses coming on the market than normal. It’s just that we have so many more buyers and people interested in the same homes. So as we look back at pending sales, we saw a few less pending sales as we wrapped up the month. A lot of that new inventory came on towards the end of the month.
So we’re going to see that reflected in the March data, which we will look at next month. I think as we look at the close sales numbers, which were down significantly this month, reflecting on listings that came on in January, we’re going to see a lot more close sales in March, which would be reflective of things that went under contract this last month. Competition in the housing market, Seattle, Bellevue remains super, super high. I mentioned we don’t have enough houses for all the buyers. And what’s resulting is this continued upward pressure on prices. Seattle set a new record, Bellevue set a new record, a lot of the suburbs around Seattle and Bellevue also set new record highs last month. If we look at it, we’re seeing significantly larger amounts over the asking price than we’re used to seeing in general, but also for this time of year. Seattle saw 9.8% above asking price on average for every single house, which is a considerable jump 5.8% from last year. Bellevue saw 22.5% above asking price on average for every single house.
And that’s an average, right? But that’s 11.1% jump year over year. So the competition has increased dramatically in Bellevue, essentially doubling and the same thing in Seattle and a big driving factor for this still continues to be the low amount of inventory houses for sale, but it’s also the mortgage rates. Mortgage rates have been climbing this year in 2022, getting closer to 4%. Overall, as we’re looking at the Seattle and Bellevue metro markets, we are continuing to see lots and lots of competition, not enough houses. And so what this means for buyers is buyers, you are in for continued competition. I don’t see a quick dramatic shift here coming your way as we head into the typically hottest part of the home buying season, as we look at the spring and early summer, that’s typically where competition is fiercest. And as I mentioned, we’re seeing record percentages above asking price on offers.
And we are looking at data from February and typically in any given year, we see the highest prices in May and June and July. And we are also seeing the largest percentages above asking price and that’s usually reflective of the most competition as we head towards the end of the spring and beginning of summer as well. So if this is any predictor of where we’re headed, it’s just going to continue to get worse and continue to get more competitive. And again, the past is no predictor of the future, but we do typically see these seasons and cycles in the Seattle, Bellevue real estate market. So for buyers, I don’t have an encouraging message for you. It’s not going to get easier, but I think you can get started earlier so that you get in on the earlier side of this versus the later side. I would also say for buyers, historically speaking, as we head towards the summer and the fall, there is usually a little bit of a leveling out, so to speak.
It’s not usually where home prices drop off, but there usually is some kind of a plateau, a little bit more of an expectation and realistic expectation. If you want to call it that of what housing prices are. We could even call that transparency. Right now, it’s hard. You see a house listed for $1 million and it sells for 1.4. Like what? So typically when you get to the summer, you start to see a house listed for 1.4, selling closer to 1.4, instead of being listed for 1.1, when clearly there’s a lot of competition still driving those prices up. So as a buyer getting started early, makes sense. And I think it also allows you to take your time and pick your timing, but also pick the right house that works for you. If you’re a seller and you’re watching this video, you are probably extremely excited hearing these numbers.
And I think you’ve got another three, four months of a window to capitalize on some of this competition. I’ve seen agents start advising clients, get your house on the market right now, do it right now, this is the hottest it’s ever been and it’s probably going to go away. I don’t know if that’s actually going to happen in the next couple months that all of a sudden your house isn’t going to sell. But last year it was fairly hot this time of year. And it did slow down in the summer time. Houses in my neighborhood were selling at asking price. They weren’t selling 10, 20% over asking price. And we saw that across the board, even in Bellevue, competition was less. So I think as a seller, if you’re trying to time the market in a historical way, you are going to want to get your house on the market sooner, rather than later.
I wouldn’t say you’re going to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. But I think the competition just historically is a little bit lower in the summer and into the fall. So if you are thinking about selling, I would consider starting to have those conversations with your agent right now. Thanks so much for watching my Seattle real estate market update for March 2022. If you made it all the way to the end of this video, I know you got a lot of value out of it so I have a couple requests. Number one, if you haven’t subscribed to my channel yet, please do so, so that you can see more of these updates. And if you have any real estate needs, whether you’re thinking about buying or selling, I’d love to be a resource for you.
