Seattle Real Estate Market Update | November 2024

Hey y’all. Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my Seattle Real Estate market update for November, 2024. Well, today in this update we’re going to talk about the housing market. We’re going to talk about some of my thoughts about where we are headed, and I’m also going to share a couple client stories and we’ll start off with that because that’s my favorite part of these updates, although it’s probably not yours, we’ll start with it because this last month I had two different clients that I was able to help with their third home purchase with me specifically, which is kind of fun to have multiple in the same month that have worked with me numerous times and one of them has worked with me to sell a couple different times as well. But just thinking back, I’ve been doing these updates for coming up on this will be the 10th year of doing these updates and also celebrating 10 years of doing real estate.

So over the past 10 years, getting to help these few clients, they were some of my first clients now with multiple purchases. It’s just a fun thing for me to reflect on as I look back over the last 10 years doing real estate. And really it is an interesting thing to reflect on how long I’ve been making these updates every single month as well. But as we’re looking at the housing market, let’s transition to that because the mortgage rates are still hovering in the 7% range, right? Yesterday they were just below seven today, a little over seven, 7.02 on mortgage news dailies survey of some of the top lenders in the country. And even with rates staying in this 7% range for most of 2024, so far we’ve been seeing that the housing market is continuing to recover and that is without a massive drop in the rates where you would expect to see the market start to pick up.

And we’re starting to see signs as I look at some of this data here that we are heading into, if rates do end up coming down in 2025, a fairly competitive housing market here in the Seattle area, maybe not quite as competitive as we saw before, but things are certainly starting to pick up. So let’s look at some of the stats here. Median sales price in Seattle last month, $960,000. The median sales price in Bellevue just under two million one million nine hundred ninety two thousand five hundred in Seattle, the median sales price was up 9.1% in Bellevue, up 21.6% year over year. And it’s somewhat shocking to look back at a three year snapshot here and to see how depressed the market really was in 2022 and how far it has recovered since 2022. So looking back at 2022 when the market was really in a free fall coming out of the rates starting to go up and mind you rates were lower at that point than they are now.

It was just the unknown of what’s going to happen. I think that was a big part of this. 910,000 in Seattle was the median sales price, now nine 60. So since then. And then in Bellevue, we were looking at 1,480,000 in October of 2022, and then we just shared just under 2 million in Bellevue for this last month. So last year was a little bit up and down. This year’s been a little bit up and down too, but overall, as we’re trending towards the end of the year, we’ve been seeing that the housing market is recovering and rates are still hovering right around 7%. Average percent of list price in Seattle was 1% over asking price. Bellevue was 0.9% or just about 1% over asking price as well. And that’s been about the trend. Normally in the fall, you don’t have as much competition in 2022 things we’re selling for below asking price, and if we were to be really honest, way more below the original asking price, but the last few years things have been selling right around asking price.

In Bellevue and Seattle in the fall, median days on market is trending similar to last year, about eight days on market in Seattle and Bellevue as a median. But the average is significantly higher, average is significantly higher. So there’s still plenty of houses where maybe they’re more unique or maybe the price points are higher and it’s taking a little longer for them to sell. Another reason maybe that that average is so much higher is because some of those houses are priced high, right? But there’s plenty of houses pulling this median down right to eight days on market, and like I said, 24 days average for Seattle versus the median of eight and 17 in Bellevue versus the median of eight. So not as dramatic in Bellevue, but the last few years it’s been about the same with the median and the average being quite a bit different.

A few years back, maybe three, four years ago, those numbers were actually fairly close just because everything was selling quickly, not just some properties. Now as we’re looking at new listing activity, this is something that we look at every single week in the Seattle housing market watches where we’re looking at King in Snohomish County data and we’re looking at what’s coming on the market. I think it’s very valuable to be paying attention to this because it helps inform the activity for sellers and also for the buyers. And a lot of that has to do with these local markets and the competition that they’re facing. So Seattle 769 new listings last month, 40.8% up year over year. That is a huge number. Last year was just real low in everything. It was low in new listings, it was low in sales activity. Last year was just a low year comparatively and Bellevue, 10.4% up year over year, 106 new listings.

But what was the case in both cities is just a slight drop off in the amount of new listings, which is normal. Typically you’re seeing September as the peak of the fall as far as new listings, and then it just starts to slowly drop off and it gets more dramatic as we head towards the holidays and specifically December. Now, what’s real fascinating is that the pending sales are remaining about the same in Seattle and Bellevue. In Seattle, up 40% again year over year. And the pending sales Bellevue up 19% slightly up from last month. Seattle’s was down a tiny bit, but mostly flat. In both cases though, the amount of pending sales in Seattle and Bellevue is higher and considerably higher than last year, but higher than 2022 as well. And the result is fewer houses available on the market. So we got the pending sales remaining about the same, the closed sales went up, this was significant, about 50% more closed sales in Seattle, not nearly as dramatic in Bellevue actually, as we’re looking at this number, barely up month over month, but Seattle was considerably up year over year, 31.8% up in Seattle, 4.4 in Bellevue, so not as dramatic.

There’s also a lot fewer houses in Bellevue, so these numbers don’t get as exciting usually as the Seattle ones, there’s more room for that to happen. But as we’re looking at the homes for sale number, the total amount of inventory, this is what’s real interesting, and that is that we’re seeing the normal trends. We’re seeing the normal trends, right? We’re seeing fewer houses on the market in Seattle. We’re seeing fewer houses on the market in Bellevue, and that’s the trend we want to see. So looking at the total supply numbers, 2.7 months of supply in Seattle, now 2.4 this month, last month, 1.7 months of supply in Bellevue, 1.4 months of supply in Bellevue this month. And we’re seeing those numbers coming down. And if we’re looking at a graph, and if we were to look at even just the last few years we’re that these are near highs for the amount of supply in the Seattle housing market.

And if we look at a larger graph, it’s actually over the last 10 years, some of the most amount of inventory we’ve had available in our housing market. And that’s why I find it fascinating to see some of the other information. And that is that the housing market is being resilient. Even with those higher supply numbers, we’re seeing prices going up, right? You’d think when the inventory is higher that prices would be cratering, but in fact they’ve been going up and nearing not at yet, but nearing those all time highs from a few years back, and we talked about this last month, if we look at even just October over October, we’re at or near an all time high for the month of October in these markets as well. So Seattle has not hit its peak yet. I suspect this spring that we will see that regardless of interest rates, but if interest rates do come down, I think we’re going to be in for a really competitive housing market here in the Seattle area, right? Bellevue included, the east side included, and that’s most likely going to trickle down into Snohomish County as well. Now, something I am keeping an eye on is just a return to work specifically for Amazon. I think we’ll see more of that with some of the other companies too, but five days a week in January, and there were many people that moved during Covid when they could work from home to the suburbs, they moved to the north end, the south end, maybe the east side.

I don’t know about you, but if I had an hour long commute each way to work, I would be considering living a little bit closer, which is why Seattle was so hot, the city of Seattle specifically for a while because there were houses that were more affordable considerably than Bellevue or the east side and even the suburbs, and they were way closer to work, and that made the Seattle housing market itself a lot more competitive than some of the surrounding areas. And that changed during Covid. I think we might see the opposite. I think we might see that pick up. And condos specifically, and I need to make a video about this and just talk more about condos too. I love condos. I don’t want to discriminate against condos, but if we’re thinking about condos in Seattle, people were not buying those as much and haven’t been buying those as much because of the lack of demand.

They were looking for something different. But I think condos will become more exciting again to potential buyers because of the proximity to work downtown. So just a hot take there for you. Now as we wrap this up, I think we’re going to see normal fall trends heading into 2025. We’re going to see fewer listings coming on the market. We’re going to see that the amount of houses available is going to continue to shrink. We’re going to see some of those houses that have been sitting on the market for a while sell. In fact, they just had a client that made an offer on a house that had been on the market for almost two months in Queen Anne, and they got the house for more than a hundred thousand below the asking price. And that asking price had already been reduced. So they got, I think, a great deal on this house in a time of the year and before the market starts picking up.

I think for them it’s going to be a big win in the long run. And I think that is the opportunity right now for buyers is before things start to pick up and before interest rates come down. I think that’s where the real opportunity lies for buyers is right now, kind of as the markets, I would say, in a transition phase or nearing a transition phase. I think there’s some pretty cool opportunities. Thanks so much for watching this month’s Seattle real estate market update. I know you got some value if you made it all the way to the end of this video. So please consider subscribing and following along on a regular basis. And if there’s any way that I can bring value to your situation buying or selling real estate here in the greater Seattle area, I’d love to be a resource for you.