Seattle Real Estate Market Watch 5/18/23

Hey all, Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my Seattle Real Estate Market Watch for May 18th, 2023.

Just got back from a real estate conference here last week, and it looks like the market is not just heating up here in the Seattle area, but it’s been heating up in other markets across the country. And I would say, especially in the markets like Seattle, where you have higher price points. And that’s fascinating to me because interest rates are still hovering in the mid to upper sixes. They haven’t changed much here over the past month or so. There was a brief dip a couple different times towards the sixes, low sixes, but we’re even looking at right now as of the 17th. So yesterday, 6.7%, the 30 year fixed rate on mortgage news Daley’s website, 15 year fixed, it was at 6.06. A jumbo 30 year jumbo, 6.4%. Man jumbos are usually such a better deal, but the rates on the jumbos are high. A five one arm, 6.82.

It’s actually better to get it fixed rate than an arm right now. Crazy inverted yield curve. The rates are not great and the market’s still picking up. And something we’ve been talking about in Seattle is that we’ve had the inventory numbers shrinking. We’ve had fewer listings, fewer buyers, but more buyers than the listing. So there’s a lot of pressure on the supply and we’re seeing that in other markets too. As I’ve talked with agents across the country, if we look at the data specifically new listings 6 71, we’re seeing more coming on the market, which is normal for this time of year. But good, I’m glad we’re starting to see the inventory picking up. As I mentioned in my most recent market update video, which was what we released last week in place of these market watches, is that it was down month over month. That’s super weird to see in the spring.

The, the amount of new listings decline in April when we’re seeing them going up. So, um, to see them starting to pick up, um, I would, I would guess that we’re gonna see higher numbers in May here at the end of the month, but I’m liking that we’re seeing more new listings. Um, I like, um, that we’re still seeing a lot of pendings 769 pending sales. Um, and again, the pending stat for the new people that is homes that were already under contract and got more closer to sold, I would I always call it. So that would be like they were pending inspection and then they went to pending or they were brand new. And the majority of these are gonna be brand news, but there are some that are transitioning, uh, to closer to sold. And speaking of sold sold listings last week, 5 47.

And if you follow these on a regular basis, you’ll notice a lot of weeks I will jump back and say, Hey, last week, this is where we were at this week. I’m not looking at last week’s data here just focusing in on this week since we did the market updates last week. So I would encourage anybody who’s not following those market updates, the Seattle real estate market update, make sure that you either subscribe so you see those regularly or you go and take a look at those because there’s a lot of really good info and data about what’s happening right now and why we’re starting to see prices climbing. And the interesting thing, we’re still seeing the price reductions, right? 252 price reductions in King and Snohomish County last week, 24 contingent purchases. But what’s interesting is we’re also seeing multiple offers on a lot of things.

I haven’t made an offer with a buyer in the last three or four weeks where we haven’t had multiple offers except on new construction. So what I tell people with new construction is, new construction typically starts to struggle sooner, right, than the resale market. Um, and then they also are the slowest to jump back. So I have a client that just got under contract on new construction out in Marysville, no competition. Now, there were definitely a lot of people looking at it, but in the specific home he was interested in no other offers. He was able to get it, have some concessions that was happening in the resale market three, four months ago, and builders were given even more at that point. But builders are still in that spot where they have enough inventory or supply in their project where you don’t have as much of that pent up demand.

Now, back in last spring, there was a bunch of pent up demand, even for new construction, but right now we’re seeing that we’re starting to transition into that. Even with the new construction, we were able to get some concessions at, according to the listing agent, they weren’t doing a lot of those at the moment. They were just selling it, um, at asking price, and you’re having to add on upgrades and things like that, which is normal for new construction. But I think we’re gonna trend more and more towards that here as we head into the summer, which is weird because normally in the summer months you see things start to flatten out or tail off with pricing and the competition. But I think this year’s gonna be different, and I’ve been talking about that for a while now. We’ll see. I mean, I, again, I’m not a profit, I don’t have a crystal ball, but the trends that I’m seeing are pointing towards continued pressure on inventory, continued upward pressure on prices, and just to even share a few stories from the last week or so, um, you know, a client in Seattle, multiple offers with a buyer, a client up north in Lake Stevens, 10 offers on a house, single family, newer but not new house.

And I just think that even with the higher interest rates and with the, um, you know, concerns that people have with the market and the economy, that people are starting to come back out to buy houses and there’s just not enough out there for the buyers. So as we continue into the rest of 2023, I think we’re going to see even this higher interest rate environment, more upward pressure on prices. So the deals are still out there. As far as the prices go, I think, you know, most of the area, if we look at the most recent data from last month, everything’s still down 10, 15% across the board. But the, you know, concessions, it’s hard to negotiate those right now with multiple offers. A lot of times you’re paying over asking price, removing contingencies, and doing things that the seller wants versus getting things as a buyer.

So as a buyer, price is still a benefit to you. Maybe not negotiated with the seller, but still less than maybe what the neighbors were paying. And I think that’s the opportunity right now for buyers, the news for sellers. Well, that’s good because as a seller you wanna see things picking up. You wanna see competition heating up and multiple offers returning, which is definitely the case. Thanks so much for watching this week’s Seattle Real Estate Market Watch. Hope you got some value out of this video. And you know what, if you made it to the end, I know you did, so please give us a thumbs up on this video. If you want to see more content like this, please subscribe to the channel. And if you are looking or thinking about buying or selling a home in King or Snohomish County, please don’t hesitate to reach out.