Snohomish Real Estate Market Update | December 2024

Hey, I’m Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my Snohomish County Real Estate Market update for December, 2024. Well, we are at the end of the year here. One more market update before we wrap up 2024. We’re going to be looking back at Snohomish County data here from November and seeing what the next month looks like. And before we jump into all that, I wanted to just wish everybody a happy holidays here. We are not too far off from Christmas and New Year, and the next time we get together for one of these updates, it’s going to be 2025. And as predicted, we’re starting to see that inventory shrinking. And I’ve shared this for a few months now, just that prediction that we’re going to see fewer and fewer houses coming on the market. The supply numbers dwindling and we’re seeing that reflected in the data.

The first one I’m seeing here in Snohomish County, new listings are down about 300. So we had 830 last month this month, 512 new listings, the amount of new listings though up year over year. So 10% more new listings than last year. Last year was extremely tight. This year is still tight, like normal, but not quite as much as last year. Last year would’ve been one of the tightest years we’ve seen in a long time. Pending sales are up year over year, 34%, tons more pending sales. In fact more pending sales than new listings here, but fewer than last month, right? So we had more new listings, which went in a hotter market, which we’ve been starting to see the market picking up a little bit. The pending sales number is not too far off from that new listings number. In fact, close sales also up year over year, 17.8%.

So that number is up to, we did see fewer than last month. Again, to be expected. There aren’t as many houses to sell, and what that’s causing is this supply number. So our last number that we always look at here on our stats is the amount of houses available, 1.3 months of supply versus 1.7 months of supply last month. So again, it’s tightening up. That means we’re getting close to that one month mark. And when we get to one month supply, that’s typically when we start to have the crazy frenzied market. Now, I wouldn’t expect that in November, but remember November, December leads into January, leads into we still don’t have a ton of listings and all of a sudden we’re in a really competitive housing market. So right now we’re in that shift that if things continue on this pattern, we’re going to see a really, really competitive beginning of 2025 as it’s shaping up right now.

So again, the data is looking very similar to what we would expect when the market is really competitive in the spring right now, and that’s not super reflective yet. We’re seeing houses selling right around asking price. So 99.7%. So pretty much the price you see is what houses are selling for. We’re not seeing houses selling way over asking at this point. There are outliers, there are certain houses in certain areas or certain pockets where competition is going to happen no matter what. There just aren’t as many houses that sell in those areas or they’re super desirable. But in general, across Snohomish County houses are selling about the asking price. Median sales price last month, 7 75, which was down a little bit from the 7 99, 9 50 last month, but up seven, 6.9% from last year. And as we’re looking at the numbers here, the average sales price of 8 63, 9 48 is also 10% up from last year.

Wow, in the last couple of years, prices have been recovering or getting closer to the all time highs. We’re not there, but as far as year over year numbers significantly up. And typically the fall has a little bit lower prices. A lot of that has to do with just you don’t have as many of those luxury houses selling this time of year. A lot of those are spring and summer houses. So I think that does skew the data a little bit in the direction of the spring, but you have fewer houses selling this time of year, typically not as many of those really expensive ones. So it does affect those averages in medians a little bit as we’re looking at the numbers. But what’s to come, right? Interest rates are down a little bit here this week. We’re right around 6.78 according to mortgage news daily survey that is a little bit below where we’ve been trending right around seven or a little bit over.

We had a pretty soft jobs report. I think the Fed is continuing their commitment to lowering rates, and that’s also a good news for the mortgage rates here. But as of now, we’re sitting right around 7% just under that. Still not in a place where I’m going to be refinancing a 7% rate, but I’m hoping that we will see rates in those lower sixes like many are predicting maybe even high fives next year. That would be a time where I would consider refinancing my rate. If I can save a whole percentage point, it’s going to make a lot of sense for me to do that. So the rest of the year, again, we’re not going to see a lot of houses coming on the market in Snohomish County. Next month will be pretty sparse. And by next month, I mean the month that we’re currently in December, we’re not going to see a lot of listings, and I would expect that the listings that are on the market are going to have some pretty solid competition and or sell relatively quickly before the new year teeing up.

What I would say for buyers is going to be a relatively competitive beginning of 2025. And so if you’re somebody who is in this moment thinking, Hey, the last couple months, if you’re somebody who’s been thinking these last couple years have been a tough time or a tougher time to sell, and you are someone who has been considering a sale, maybe getting rid of a rental or moving out of the area, this is when you would think about maybe doing that. I think you’re going to be close to, if not even, maybe this would be really bold. I’ll say maybe close to all time highs this spring. And if you are in that boat where you want to get rid of your property, move on and also capitalize on maybe some of the highest prices we’ve had in Snohomish County. This might be the spring to make that happen. Thanks so much for tuning into this month’s Snohomish County Real Estate Market update. If you got some value out of this video, please consider subscribing. And if you want to see videos like this on a regular basis, I have a weekly Seattle Housing Market watch where we talk about King and Snohomish County data on a weekly basis, and you can get more up-to-date data on a regular basis there as well.