Snohomish County Real Estate Market Update | August 2024

Hey, y’all. Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my Snohomish County Real Estate market update for August, 2024.

Well, in these videos each month we look back at the data from the previous month and I share some insights for where I think the housing market is headed. Let’s jump into the stats here. First, in Hommes County, last month we saw 947 new listings, 10% more new listings coming on the market, which is the trend for much of this year. We’ve had about 16 point a half percent more new listings coming on the market in Snohomish County than we did in the previous year. So more houses coming on the market General trend here for Snohomish County. We did see fewer listings though than we did in June, which I would argue is not normal to see fewer listings in July than in June. But we have seen a little bit of a pullback here. As we look at pending sales, we’ve seen about 1.8% more pending sales in Snohomish County.

Again, another trend for 2024 so far more pending sales. And we also saw more closed sales, 3.3%, not a huge number, but we did see a jump. And again, that has been a general trend for 2024. So we’re seeing more activity, we’re seeing more listings, we’re seeing more buyers days on market. Not much different than last year, 18 days versus 19. And actually last month we saw 15 days on market. So we’ve seen a little bit of an increase in the average days on market for Snohomish County versus last month. And also if we look at last year, it’s slight downtick now, median sales price, July 815,000 in Snohomish County, which is up 8.7% from last year. That’s a great return on investment if you bought a house in Snohomish County, but tougher buyers if you’re a buyer and interest rates have remained about the same and prices are 8.7% up.

That’s not necessarily an encouraging place to be. Prices are down slightly from last month at 8 25, just under 8 25. But again, not super significant. We are seeing that there is more supply in the market. We had 1.8 months of supply versus 1.7 months of supply last month. That’s been a general trend here over the summer. It’s normal to see the inventory increasing in the summer. In fact, right now we are seeing the highest inventories of the year. We’re also seeing that we have about 37.5% more homes available for sale than last year. And last year was a really inventory year, but the amount of sales activity was also low, which kept, I guess the pressure on prices down in the summer here in Snohomish County. Now as I’m looking at Snohomish County right now, and I’m thinking about what is going to happen as we see an election coming up, what’s going to happen as interest rates potentially come down?

I would argue that the election will not have much of an effect. If anything, it’s more going to be psychological. People are going to be maybe a little bit cautious about what’s going on. But the biggest thing I think is going to happen is when we start to see rates coming down, which now more than ever, we’re seeing more signs of that. I think there will be more buyers able to purchase in Snohomish County, which will put pressure on the inventory that’s there. More buyers coming in. The housing numbers aren’t just going to change. We’re not going to see a bunch of new listings all of a sudden just because they are more buyers. And I expect that we’ll see this fall be a little bit more competitive maybe than other falls in recent memory. So my prediction for the Snohomish County Housing market here is that it will become more competitive this fall than it was over the past few years.

That’s not super bold because it wasn’t that competitive the past few years, but I do think it’s going to be more competitive than even a normal year in Snohomish County. So buyers right now, prices are at least stabilized a little bit down. Competition is minimal right around asking price 0.7% above asking price is what you can expect. So you’re not paying way over asking price. And especially if a house is sitting for 18 days, if you nab a house that’s on the higher end of the days on market, you have a chance for some negotiation, maybe even getting a little bit lower price. And I’ve seen that work out for clients here recently in Snohomish County. So if you have questions about this Snohomish County Housing market here, maybe you even have questions about a specific area. If you’re somebody looking at buying in a specific place like Lake Stevens or you’re somebody thinking about selling maybe in Snohomish, I’d love to be a resource for you. Feel free to reach out anytime. And of course, if this information was valuable for you, please consider subscribing.