Straight out of the horses mouth. I noticed these stats posted by the NWMLS today. I found a smilar post on their public site, nwrealestate.com. You can see the detailed story here
During 2006, members of NWMLS. . .
- Reported more than 96,000 closed sales with a combined value of more than $35 billion
- Experienced a 6.7% drop in number of units sold compared to 2005, but an increase of about 5% in the dollar volume of the closed transaction
- Reported 1,951 sales of single family homes priced at $1 million or more (up from 1521 during 2005) and 859 sales of condominiums priced at $500,000 or more (up from 623 during 2005).
- The MLS area covering Bellevue/West of 405 had the highest number of million dollar-plus sales with 219, followed by Central Seattle/Madison Park with 165. For high-end condos ($500,000-plus), west Bellevue had the largest number (183), followed by Belltown/downtown Seattle (130) and Kirkland (117); 145 condos sold for more than $1 million
- Among the 19 counties in the MLS service area, San Juan claimed the highest median price ($539,500) for single family homes that sold last year; King County followed at $425,000
- Maintained a high ratio of cross-sales: more than three of every four transactions were listed by one office and sold by a different office
- Added 139,814 new listings of SFH and condos to inventory, with the highest volume (14,541 added during June
- Represented more than 30,000 home sellers, on average, each month
- Reported double-digit price gains for SFH compared to 2005 in all but one county
- In the four-county Puget Sound region (King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap), only about 6% of single family homes sold for under $200,000
- Sold more than 15,000 condominiums, about the same as during 2005; approximately 63% of all condos that sold system-wide were in King County.
- Found wide variation in prices of 3-bedroom homes. For pre-owned homes (built 2004 or earlier), the median sales price ranged from $124,900 in Grant Co. to $508,000 in San Juan Co.
- In King County, the average price of a single family home that sold in 2006 was about 2.9 times higher than the price in 1990 (up from $178,187 to $518,108).
NWMLS at a Glance
Member Brokerages Sales Associates Counties included in Summary Report
WA is one of a handful of states that has more inactive real estate licensees waiting in the wings than active licensees. This tends to happen in higher than normal capital growth markets where the compensation for real estate agents is perceived to be higher than the compensation at a “real job”. I’ll try to find the academic paper source.
Cheers,
Michael P. Lindekugel
Financial Analyst
RE/MAX Commercial
Team Reba – RE/MAX Metro Realty, Inc
So does this mean that the market is levelling or crashing? Please help me decode the stats?
Sandy, I don’t see that the market is either leveling or crashing, but rather we had double digit price increases on less inventory, that’s all. We all noticed a drop in the fall-winter. But that’s normal. Seems we often start the first six months with a whopping increase in prices, then by summer the market starts collecting listings,i.e., more supply, prices level and then during the fall-winter the prices start dropping while we absorb all the inventory. The fact that we still had double digit price hikes means the prices probably rose 20% and dropped by 5% to finish around 15% increase. That’s why I think it’s always hot in the spring, since we seem to get the entire year’s price increase plus some in the first 5-6 months then drop to a realistic level in the winter.With all the media hype, a normal year in 2006 looked like it was portending disaster, but it actually was just that, normal. The years without the pullbacks were the abnormal years. Having worked new construction for so many years, the builders typically had inventory on their hands every fall and started dropping prices. By Jan or Feb, the inventory was absorbed just in time for the new round of price increases.
Michael, love to see those stats. Sounds like we have more of a promise of high income attracting those looking for easy income until they find out how difficult real estate sales really are, they get disillusioned and drop out. I’ve sure seen it happen in my office.
I second Eileen. I’m seeing the same thing, and have seen the same thing, mostly every year. People who look at August through December to predict market conditions, are usually off. No one knows until January. And January 2007 is very strong with old inventory being sold off. Sure you can go find some overpriced listing to say “this one isn’t selling” or some dog no one wants that isn’t selling. But by and large, new inventory is being gobbled up and old inventory is getting real and selling off.
This year looks like last year, so far. Overall increase should be in the double digits with some going up 8% and other’s going up 30% and the average at 12% to 15%.
I only talk about Seattle Downtown and North of town to Shoreline and Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Kenmore and Bothell. Issaquah is a market unto itself and points South operate on a completely different valuation factor. So the prediction is for both sides of the 520 bridge. I have no clue what Federal Way is doing these days, or Auburn or Fife 🙂
Maybe someone working South Seattle and Pierce County can chime in here, along with some Snohomish County agents.
Michael & Sandy-
Because of Eileen & Ardell’s MASSIVE experience, I thought it would be better if I let them address your comments. Looks like I was right 🙂 Thanksf or the comments you two!
Eileen, Did Jon just call us old? 🙂
That’s only because he doesn’t realize that he has to get older if I do!