Seattle Real Estate Market Watch 6/14/23

Hey all, Zach McDonald, your real estate agent with Real Property Associates, and this is my Seattle Real Estate Market Watch for June 14th, 2023.

All right, everybody, the McDonald family is moving. My wife and I are purchasing a house in Shoreline, which means we’re gonna be moving just across the county line from Edmonds, but it also means that we’re gonna be selling our Edmonds house. So if anybody’s interested in a sweet house in Edmonds, let me know. I wanted to also share another story with you, and that is a situation with some buyers from this week. And I think as we’re talking about the market, things have been changing and I started making these market watch videos when we were seeing the market going down because it didn’t seem like the monthly market updates were enough. I felt like it needed weekly attention. And we took a week off last week for the market updates, back at it for the stats. And the stats really are showing that things are getting better.

And year over year things still seem down, but what we’ve been seeing is things are trending up in the Seattle Bellevue metro area. So I’ll give you a couple examples here. In King County last month, median sales price was nine 12, which is down 8.8% year over year. Snohomish County 7.75, down about 4.9% year over year. And again, that means, hey, things aren’t selling for what they were last year. But if you go watch the market updates that I just put out, you’ll see that things have improved dramatically since January. We’ve seen about 10% or more in both King and Snohomish counties and things are selling over asking price. Again, king County, 2% above asking price on average, 1.3% above asking price in Snohomish County on average. So again, things are selling at asking price or above. Now, more often than not, so if you want more info on the most recent data, go check out the market updates every month.

We’re posting one about the Seattle market in general, and then you’ve got the King and Snohomish County ones if you want to focus specifically on the countywide updates. Now, a story about where we’re at right now. So clients offered on a house in Broadview neighborhood, which is northwest Seattle. There were 22 offers on the house, 22 offers on the house, 12 were over a hundred thousand above asking price. Eight had zero contingencies and released all their earnest money to the seller early, which makes sense only when you have zero contingencies and 12 of them are closing in 21 days or less. So we talk about the competition, and I’ve been sharing this over the past couple months that things are starting to heat up. That sounds a lot like things did back in 2021, but the catch is interest rates are at 7%. Now interest rates are at 7% and we’re still seeing this.

So use your imagination with me and just imagine what this looks like when we start to see interest rates drop. Interest rates have gone up this year since the beginning of the year. They were in the low, like mid, mid to low sixes, now they’re up over seven or hovering around seven as of today. In fact, 6.95 to be exact according to mortgage news Daily’s survey of mortgage rates. So we’re seeing interest rates up fewer listings than normal buyer activities picking up, and we’re seeing massive competition. 22 offers crazy. So even last month’s data seems old and it doesn’t take long for houses selling a hundred plus thousand over asking price to see things jump back up to where they were. So I mentioned in my market updates, I wouldn’t be surprised to see prices higher than they were at the end of the year.

So we get to the end of 2023 and I think we’ll see year-over-year increases if things stay like this. So again, we’ll see. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I am predicting and projecting into the future based on what I’m seeing. And if this trend continues, I think it’s gonna be tough, it’s gonna be a tough environment for buyers, but there’s clearly still 22 people able to do this and be competitive. So I thought this was important to share with you versus maybe a comparison, uh, week over week or you know, the most recent comparison I have for these market watches. Now the data is still showing here new listings, 579 new listings, which is not very many seasonally, right? We’ve been talking about how we’ve seen lower numbers. Um, for the weekly stats here in King and Snohomish County, again, seven day period in King and Snohomish Counties, we had 332 price reductions.

So even with all of the houses selling over asking price, we’re still seeing price reductions. And what that means is that some people are just pushing those numbers a little bit, right? You start to hear things are getting better and like maybe I can get that number that I wanted to get. But the truth is, if you’re pricing on the higher side of the value, you’re still going to be most likely doing a reduction or maybe even selling for a little less than asking price. Now does that mean it’s a bad strategy? Not necessarily. And depending on where you’re at in King or Snohomish County, it could just be the way that it is, right? Not everywhere is doing this, but this house that I mentioned earlier in Seattle is getting a lot of attention and I’ve had a few different clients making offers in the Seattle area, specifically Seattle itself and up north a little bit.

And that’s what it’s been like. It just keeps getting progressively more competitive here over the past few months. So that’s the most recent intel. Now, as far as pending sales, 849 pending sales versus the 579 new listings, again, those pending sales, some of those were pending inspection and now are pending closer to sold as I like to say. But again, the pending sales are keeping up and even listings sold higher than the new listings. So that just means that inventory is remaining about the same or shrinking slightly and that just keeps pressure on the competition. And, and normally this time of year you see a flood of new houses listing in comparison to the buyers, even in a hotter market. And we’re just not seeing an enough listings to keep up with buyer demand and the buyer’s sentiment is starting to change, right? If 22 people are offering and you’re having offers with no contingencies releasing earnest money, you’re in a similar environment to we, what we were in last year.

Now, yeah, not 30% over asking price, but still 10, 15, 20% over asking price is nothing to be sneezed at or laughed at. So I guess my message today is it’s picking up. It’s picking up and it’s just more proof here that we’re seeing the housing market trending in an upward direction as far as prices go. And competition sellers, again, this is great for you if you’re somebody thinking about buying not as great a news, but it just means that you need to get started earlier. If you’re a buyer, you need to be ready for competition and prepared to be competing. The days of getting a house below asking price or getting concessions from the seller is pretty much gone, but there are still opportunities. 332 houses had price reductions, which means those are houses that if they go past their offer review date are opportunities.

So if you want an opportunity to not be paying above asking price or competing, those are the types of properties you want to be going after. But at the same time, it’s this lower, I’d say first-time home buyer price point where you’re seeing a lot more of the competition. It’s less competitive at the higher price points, but if you’re in that, you know, 700 to 1.1, 1.2 range, you’re in the prime competition price point. Thanks so much for watching this week’s Seattle Real Estate Market Watch. I hope that it was valuable and informative for you. If you enjoy watching videos like this, please subscribe to the channel. And if you have any questions about buying or selling real estate in King and Snohomish Counties, the Seattle Metro area, I’d love to be a resource for you.