Market Trends
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March 4th, 2010
Northwest MLS brokers say housing market in Washington state indicates recovery
The Northwest Multiple Listing Service released the following market update today:
K IRKLAND, Wash. (March 4, 2010) - Northwest Multiple Listing Service members reported strong gains in home sales during February, with brokers pointing to several encouraging signs for a busy spring season. Improving consumer confidence and a looming deadline for homebuyer tax credits are helping to boost activity, according to NWMLS officials.
“We are entering what is traditionally our busiest home selling season,” said NWMLS director OB Jacobi, general manager of Windermere Real Estate Company. “With the first job increase since 2008 and closed sales in King County up about 45 percent, there is every indication that our market is in recovery,” he added. Jacobi reported “significant traffic” at open houses, which he attributes to the first-time homebuyer tax credit and rising consumer confidence.
Pending sales (offers made and accepted, but not yet closed) jumped nearly 45 percent last month compared to a year ago, marking the 11th straight month of month-over-month increases. Twelve of the 21 counties in the MLS market area reported double-digit gains in pending sales, led by San Juan County (up 85.7 percent), Snohomish County (up nearly 71 percent) and King County (up nearly 63 percent).
Closed sales also outperformed year-ago totals, rising 33.5 percent. Members tallied 3,214 completed transactions last month, up from the 2,407 closed sales for February 2009.
Prices, while showing signs of stabilizing, still lagged year-ago figures. Area-wide, the median price for last month’s closed sales of single family homes and condominiums (combined) was $260,000, down about 6.5 percent from a year ago. The median price for single family homes (excluding condos) dipped 4.6 percent, while condo prices declined nearly 9 percent.
In the four-county Puget Sound region, the median price for single family homes that sold and closed last month was $297,000, down about 2.6 percent from the year-ago figure of $305,000. Condo prices in the area fell 7.7 percent, from the year-ago selling price of $253,000 to $233,500 for last month’s sales.
MLS members added 10,663 new listings to inventory last month, bringing the total number of active listings in the system to 36,350. That total is down 7.5 percent from the same month a year ago, creating a more balanced market that favors neither buyers nor sellers.
Move-up buyers are accounting for some of the surge in activity. Brokers credit the combination of a $6,500 tax incentive for qualified repeat buyers and thawing jumbo loan market as factors in spurring activity for this segment.
“Over the past 90 days there has been a buildup of positive momentum in the housing market and we continue to see evidence that the tax credit extension/expansion is working,” remarked J. Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott, Inc.
Scott noted higher priced areas, such as Mercer Island, Redmond, and Issaquah, are seeing an uptick in home sales - suggesting more move-up buyers are engaging in the market. “Historically low interest rates continue to be a motivating factor which when combined with the tax credit give buyers a significant purchasing power advantage,” he commented.
Interest rates on jumbo loans (more than $567,500 in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties) fell to 5.79 percent on a 30-year fixed-rate loan in the past few weeks. That’s a five-year low, according to Informa Research Services, whose clients include the nation’s top 25 banks.
Noting the peak real estate season is approaching, MLS director Meribeth Hutchings, pointed to several encouraging signs. “Homes are more affordable, mortgage rates are at all-time lows, and employment in the state appears to be on the rise,” said Hutchings, the broker at Windermere Real Estate/Lake Stevens. “All signs point to a strong spring,” she added.
Earlier in the week, the state Employment Security Department reported the state’s economy “picked up some steam in January,” adding an estimated 12,400 jobs the first monthly gain since November 2008.
NWMLS Dick Beeson, broker/owner of Windermere Real Estate/Commencement Associates in Tacoma, attributes the lift in activity to lower prices and a hopeful jobs picture. He said the price point of new listings in some areas is 10-to-15 percent lower than the asking price of new listings added at this time a year ago, which is opening up opportunities for more buyers.
“The plethora of shorts sales and foreclosures has diluted the price point of many homes that are selling, making appraisals more challenging,” Beeson reported. He believes the tax credit has “helped only marginally.” The real potential of a recovered housing market, according to Beeson, will come with new employment for many displaced workers. Recent employment gains and reports of rising consumer confidence are encouraging, he noted.
“We can see and hear the rumblings of pent-up demand from buyers,” Beeson commented, adding he expects spring and summer sales to outpace last year because there are such good price values in the market. He said they are reminding buyers of the possibility of rising mortgage interest rates due to the Federal Reserve’s plan to stop buying mortgages by the end of March.
Northwest Multiple Listing Service, owned by its member brokers, is the largest full-service MLS in the Northwest. Its membership includes more than 24,000 brokers and agents. The organization, based in Kirkland, currently serves 21 counties in western and central Washington. Ferry and Clallam counties are now included in the monthly statistical reports.
October 2nd, 2009
Assessed values being adjusted in Anacortes
A quick conversation with the Skagit County Assessors Office confirmed that while they are not done with the process of doing their analysis, it does look like they will be adjusting down a good amount of the residential properties in Anacortes by around 10% and some possibly down by 15%. At this point there is no way to find out if your property is one that will be adjusted down, so don’t bother burning up the phone lines, but in the relatively near future we will see a change to a good deal of the properties not only here in Anacortes, but in select other areas in Skagit County. I’ll post more when this happens.
Year to date, on sales reported in the North West Multiple Listing Service, homes in Anacortes have been selling on average at 98% of their assessed value. Earlier in the year we were at 94%, so this number is creeping in the right direction. This does not include sales that were not Realtor assisted, and that number I would guess is much lower as there are a few foreclosure sales that will drag it down.
Just a general note for you is that market activety is up, showings are up and people are on the move!
September 11th, 2009
What is Your Property Worth in the Current Market - or - Who Invited the Appraiser, Anyway?
I don’t have to tell you that there are a lot of factors to be considered when determining property values - some scientific, (probablities, sales histories, market averages, etc.) and some emotional (how motivated is the seller, can that one-in-a-million buyer live without the property, etc.).
One thing is certain, buyers need money to buy property, and most of that money comes in the form of a loan of some sort. Very few of us have the cash needed to buy property outright - so we need help. Usually that’s from a bank or perhaps the seller of the property. With most loans, even with seller financing, an appraisal is required at some point in the purchase and sale transaction. When an appraisal is required, it is generally the case that the property must appraise for the agreed upon price or there is no deal. That said, it is critical for potential property sellers to understand what guidelines the appraisers are operating under at any given time in the marketplace.
Typically, appraisers use similar, recently sold properties as comparables when they are determining an appraised value. You are correct if you assume that in this market, it is challenging for appraisers to find a lot of recently sold similar properties. There just aren’t that many. What they resort to then, is looking at properties that may have sold quite some time ago, or properties that aren’t as similar as they would be in a regular market. When appraisers have to get creative with comparables, they are required to make adjustments to account for the differences in properties.
In a recent conversation with a local appraiser whom I consider to be one of the best, I was informed that one of the calculations being used to equalize property values is a one-half to two percent PER MONTH decline in value over the past 24 months. I knew that math class I took spring quarter would come in handy - you gotta do the logarithm to figure that out! Here’s the equation:
C=P(2.7)-it
C= current value
P=past value
i=percent decline
t=number of months
If an appraiser felt your house was worth $500,000 24 months ago, and you are in an area or property type that declined 1% per month, the equation to calculate your present value would look something like this:
C=$500,000(2.7)-.01(24)
C =$393,951. (The 2.7 is a constant roughly equaling the value of natural logarithm e.)
I was told that in our market, condominiums and vacant land would most likely be at the higher end of the percentage spectrum, and conventional single family residences would be at the lower end.
Now, you might not care what an appraiser thinks your property is worth, and not all properties are going to fit into neat equations and probabilities, but it is a good thing to know as much as you can about what might factor into a buyers ability to buy your property. It’s just one more way a seller can get the competitive edge in todays market.
July 28th, 2009
Quadrant boosts production in response to home sales
O ur area’s largest homebuilder has boosted production from 2 homes a day, to 3 homes a day in response to the uptick in home sales. Quadrant homes are in the $200-300,000 range and are lined up exactly where demand currently lies. I wouldn’t expect to see some of our higher end home builders jump on the bandwagon just yet as there seems to be plenty of inventory in the high end, and relatively few sales. Read the article in the Seattle Times here.
A widely watched index, The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 major cities, shows home prices posted their first monthly increase since the summer of 2006, indicating prices are finally stabilizing. The report released Tuesday rose 0.5 percent from April, but was still 17.1 percent below May a year ago.
The 10-city index rose 0.4 percent from April, but was off 16.8 percent from May last year. It was the fourth consecutive month both indexes didn’t post record annual decline. Home prices are now at levels not seen since mid-2003.
July 27th, 2009
New Home Sales on the rise!
G ood news for home builders, and ultimately the economy. Sales of new homes showed strong increases in June, inventory of new homes has dropped below “normal” levels, and builder confidnece is up. All of these point to more new home starts in our future which of course means jobs in the construction industry and supplies being purchased from suppliers who must be hurting durning this downturn. Good news all around! Read the article here.