Seattle Housing Market Watch 10/15/2024

Hey, I’m Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my Seattle Real Estate Market Watch for October 15th, 2024. Well, the big news over the last few weeks is that mortgage rates have been going up, not down. If you listen to the most recent monthly market update that I made last week, I talked a little bit more about that. I also talked about how the September prices, so the median sales price in September for Seattle and Bellevue also were record highs for the month of September in both Seattle and Bellevue. And although the housing market has been doing this over the past few years and is still in a place of trying to get back to where it was here in Seattle, we did see the highest median sales price that we’ve ever seen in Seattle and Bellevue in the month of September.

So in real estate, if you’re new to the channel, we talk about how year over year numbers are usually better metrics than month over month metrics because the real estate market is seasonal and it is cyclical, and it is nice to be able to look back at the seasonal changes. Yeah, month over month is helpful, but it is almost more helpful to look back at where were we last year, where were we in the past in this same month with similar buyer habits, similar listing habits, et cetera. So as we look at the data for this week, we took a pause last week on the market watch, filmed the monthly market update. So go take a watch at that or you listen at that. And then two weeks ago when we did the most recent market watch, we were seeing that the amount of new listings and the inventory was starting to change and shift again as we’re in the fall coming out of the summer where things tend to build up before they start to trail off.

And so as we’re looking at new listings, we’re seeing a continued drop off here, 605 new listings for the past week in King and Snohomish Counties combined down from 6 38, a couple of weeks back. We didn’t track last week here, but what we’re seeing is a few weeks ago, end of September, middle of September, 800, 900 listings a week, and that’s been trailing off. So we did have that final push that I was talking about, but I think we’re starting to see that slowing down here. Now, buyer activity is still pretty strong. We have 934 pending listings two weeks ago, and we have 794 pending sales in the past week now. So that activity has slowed, but part of that I think is because the new listings have also slowed. So we’re seeing less houses coming on the market. We’re still seeing more than we are seeing new coming off the market sold listings down quite a bit, 5 31 versus 7 37, a few weeks back, a few weeks back, that was the end of the month.

And so that’s not necessarily something that we’re like, whoa, that’s so different. But we are going to see more and more sales as we get towards the end of the month. So the next couple updates should have more than 531 closings. The biggest thing though, I want to point out here that we’re seeing outside of the normal seasonal trends is the amount of price reductions, 469 price reductions versus 605 new listings. And what that’s telling me is a large percentage of the houses that are on the market are taking a little longer to sell. We saw the days on market has been creeping up in King and Snohomish County. We’re up over 20 days. And in a lot of cases, that is one price adjustment away from selling. So a lot of homes that are maybe priced based on comparables from a few months ago are just a tad high when they hit the market.

Right now, that’s not the case for everything. Some are still selling quickly, some are still selling over asking price. In fact, the median or the average, excuse me, the average amount of list price is actually above the list price. But if we were to look at the original list price in factor in the price reductions, I think we’re a little bit lower than that. Now, I think a big piece of this has to do with mortgage rates. People were excited, mortgage rates were actually dropping over the summer, and up until the Fed’s most recent meeting and rate drop rates had been declining. And then ever since they’ve actually been going up. So since the Fed dropped rates half a percent, we’ve seen mortgage rates go up more than half a percent. And I don’t want to explain that too much today. Go take a listen to some of the most recent updates the last couple of weeks.

I talk a little bit more about that. But a big piece is that the Fed rate cut was already baked into the mortgage rates and also in anticipation of more to come. And maybe that’s not going to be the case. At least that’s been some of the communication. I would be surprised to see more cuts here before the election. I think we’re going to wait until after that to see who’s elected and what shifts and changes. Then I think we will continue to have a little bit more clarity about what’s coming next. That also might be part of why things have been slowing down here a little bit as well in Seattle as well is because we have the election coming up. Now, historically speaking, the election doesn’t really have much of a sway or effect on the housing market as far as prices and such.

But at the same time, I think there are some buyers, it’s hard to say there, that are waiting to see what’s going on. But I’ve had many people reaching out to me recently about getting started with the home purchase and a few of them actually this week under contract. And also plenty of people looking to sell more so even than in the previous few years. So there are some real trends here that are shifting, but I think we’re still not quite there on the other side of things, starting to get back to where they were. If you have questions about the housing market or your situation in particular, feel free to reach out to me. You can drop a comment here. Feel free to give me a call anytime. I’d love to be a resource for you.