Seattle Housing Market Watch 10/29/2024

Hey, I’m Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my Seattle Housing Market Watch for October 29th, 2024. Well, the big news in the real estate industry right now is that rates, mortgage rates continue to climb. And the big question is, why are mortgage rates climbing right now? Some people are talking about the election. I think it has less to do with the election right now than a few things. And the first one being that the job reports have been positive. The last couple job reports are indicating that we are adding the amount of jobs that we need to. Now, if we look back a few months ago, there was a revision to some job reports that showed a massive over-reporting of jobs. And that did actually have a negative effect on rates or in a buyer’s opinion, a positive effect on rates.

It brought them down. We’re seeing rates climbing as the more recent job reports are positive. We’re also seeing that the economy is continuing to go up. Big companies are showing profits, the stock market’s going up. So in both cases, it seems like at least on the surface, that things are going relatively well, even if that’s not how consumers are experiencing the economy as a whole. So for now, we’re seeing rates continuing to climb. Last week, the survey Mortgage News daily does 6.85 for a 30 year fixed rate this week, 7.03 for that same 30 year fixed rate mortgage. And we’ve seen this trend over the past month or so. Rates have been climbing a quarter percent or so a week. It seems like maybe they’re leveling off here and even going down a little bit, maybe we’ll drop below seven, but rates are hovering around 7% again for a 30 year fixed mortgage.

And coupled with the normal approach to the holidays and things starting to slow down, we’re seeing both of these coming together in the housing market here in Seattle right now. I mentioned every week as we approach the holidays that we’re likely going to see fewer and fewer new listings as well and continue to see some of the listings that have been sitting on the market for a while sell. And that trend is continuing here. As we see last week we had 478 new listings in the past week, 4 55. So we’re seeing a decrease in the new listing activity. And as we’re looking at these stats, we’re looking at King County and Snohomish County Data put together for single family homes. We’re seeing that the list price reductions here, 383 this week versus 4 63 last week. So a lot of houses having price reductions last week, fewer this week.

We saw the contingent sales staying about the same 21 versus 19. The contingent sales for those that are new are just homes that are purchased contingent on the sale of the buyer’s property. So the buyer needs to sell their home. If they sell their home, then the sale can proceed. The number of listings pending, pretty similar here, 813, a couple weeks back the last week, 775 pending sales. So we’re seeing about the same amount of buyer activity. And as we’ve been talking about, the new listing activity is declining. So 4 78, 4 55. In the next few weeks, we’re going to start to see this shrink considerably as we approach Thanksgiving and the Christmas holiday and all the other holidays that are happening in the next couple months here. The sold listings 634, a couple weeks back last week, 640, we are approaching the end of the month.

So this is where we’re going to see the majority of those sales happening. And then canceled listings about the same. A lot of those canceled get re-listed. So we see back on the market 80 versus 113, there are going to be increasing number of ones maybe that haven’t sold that will start to consider pulling their house for the holiday season, re-listing after the new year being. Those would be people that maybe don’t need to sell right now. Maybe they want to, but they don’t need to. And others may be changing their mind, but the majority of people that would take their house off for the holidays would be doing so because they’re not in any type of rush. Maybe they’ve decided they want to stay around for the holidays, put the house back on the market, come this spring, hope that the market is better.

It would typically be houses that have been sitting on the market for a little while, maybe considering a price reduction and making a different decision. So if I was a buyer right now, I always want these videos to be applicable for people. If I was a buyer right now, this is the season where there are going to be fewer listings starting to come on the market. I think as a buyer, there are houses that have been sitting for a while though that are motivated. So if people aren’t taking their house off the market for the holidays and they are motivated to sell, maybe they’ve done a price reduction, these are people that you would want to work with potentially as a buyer. Maybe the house was listed a little high to start with and they’re trying to find the price that the market’s willing to bear, and maybe you don’t have to compete over a purchase.

So I think for buyers, there’s a lot of benefits to being searching right now and buying a house right now for sellers. I think it depends on the situation. I had a client that listed this week in Everett, mill Creek ish Everett, and we got a great offer within a week, and it’s sold. So we can contrast that with a listing of mine in Edmonds in my old neighborhood, a great rambler with some updates. So if you’re looking for something in the Edmonds, north Shoreline area, this house is great, but it is a little bit smaller, and it has taken us a few months on the market to sell. And so you have the one that really quickly sold. You have one that’s taking a little more time. Some of that is location and some of that is the house. Some of that is maybe the market, right?

But there are different stories for each sale. And so some houses are still selling relatively quickly. There’s definitely buyers out there. If we look at the pending activity and the sold activity, there are plenty of buyers out in the market right now. And as the amount of new listings shrink, it will bring the buyers back to those houses that are taking a little bit more time as their options dwindle. And so for the people that list during the holidays, the one benefit, I think the biggest benefit is that you are listing at a time where there aren’t as many options. So if you have buyers that are needing to buy a place or they’ve been looking for a while, and your house is one of the few options that’s going to bring buyers to your house versus all the options that are available in the summer and early fall.

And that’s typically when there’s more of a backlog of options. And so those options are starting to go away, meaning there are going to be fewer options, especially fewer newer options for buyers to consider. And they will need to consider those options that are available if they need to make a purchase right now. So for buyers, more options for sellers, you’re going to have increasingly motivated buyers and fewer houses that you’re competing with for a sale during the holidays. And as we’ve talked about as well, some people will choose to wait until after the holidays to list, but it’s not necessarily needed in all cases. It would be maybe some of those houses that have been taking a little bit more time to sell and they want to wait versus a need to wait. So those are my thoughts here today. If you have questions about your situation buying or selling here in the Seattle area, of course I’d love to be a resource for you. You can feel free just to reach out if you have questions about the market too, here in the greater Seattle area. And of course, if you know somebody who could benefit from this content, please consider sharing it with them.