2/3 of Seattle Real Estate Offers Have Competition; 60% Over Asking Price

In a recent report on the most competitive real estate markets in the country, Seattle came in at #6 overall.  That competition is fierce in Seattle is not a surprise to local home buyers.  The actual regularity of competitive offers and bids over the listing price is somewhat shocking, however.

For every three home buyers in Seattle that submitted an offer in May, two of them had competition from other bidders.  With 2/3 of buyers finding themselves in a bidding war situation, offer prices naturally rise.

60.6 percent of all offers were over the "asking price" or the list price on the home.  This is clearly driving the appreciation in list prices and closing prices in Seattle.  The majority of homes are now selling within just a few weeks on the market, and close to half are selling in the first week.  From the report in Realtor Magazine, the most competitive markets in America:

1. San Francisco
 Percent of offers that faced competition: 87.9%
 Percent of offers that were over the asking price: 96.8%

2. Los Angeles 
 Percent of offers that faced competition: 86.1%
 Percent of offers that were over the asking price: 25%

3. Orange County 
 Percent of offers that faced competition: 83.9%
 Percent of offers that were over the asking price: 58.1%

4. San Diego
 Percent of offers that faced competition: 72.6%
 Percent of offers that were over the asking price: 60.9%

5. Boston 
 Percent of offers that faced competition: 68.1%
 Percent of offers that were over the asking price: 56.5%

6. Seattle
 Percent of offers that faced competition: 67.4%
 Percent of offers that were over the asking price: 60.6%

7. Washington, D.C.
 Percent of offers that faced competition: 66.8%
 Percent of offers that were over the asking price: 36.1%

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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Kirkland Real Estate Roars in May: Home Sales Up 17.5%, Pending Listings Rise 24.3%

Kirkland's spring real estate season is heating up far more quickly than in years past.  The latest stats from May are solidifying the picture of a market that is growing at a rapid pace, without much slowdown in sight.

Kirkland Real Estate Sales, Pending Listings, Monthly

There were 117 residential real estate sales in Kirkland in May, according to the NWMLS.  That was a significant gain over the previous month's 97 sales, a 17.5 percent increase.  While home sales in spring are always on an upward trend, this year's sales were also 17.5 percent higher than in May of 2012.  Clearly, we're seeing a stronger market as buyers push through the relative lack of inventory to continue this trend of increasing sales.

Even more strikingly, the number of pending home sales in Kirkland rose to 138 residential contracts signed in May.  This 24.3 percent increase in one month points to a huge summer of real estate sales.  Closings in June are likely to follow suit in a fairly similar manner.

The pending contracts signed in May were 40.8 percent higher than in the same month last year.  Those kinds of year-over-year gains are what have lead to the minimal inventory we're seeing in Kirkland right now.  Increased new listings each month are just not keeping up with larger increases in buyer demand.

There are actually still plenty of new listings in Kirkland coming on the market.  The monthly rate of new listings is very similar to where it has been for the past few years.  In fact, the 185 new residential listings in May were the largest batch we've seen in over four years.  If that trend continues, we could possibly see the stiff buyer competition soften a little as we head into late summer.

Still, for current house hunters inKirkland, the market remains tight.  Inventory has barely kept pace with the gains in total sales, and remains at two months of available homes.  Multiple-offer situations and bidding wars will likely continue, for at least the next few months. 

 

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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New Listings In Bellevue Hit 4 Yr High, Real Estate Inventory Stays At Just 1 Mo

Home sellers in Bellevue are getting the message that local real estate inventory is low.  Buyers in Bellevue just keep upping the stakes to a higher level.

Bellevue Months of Real Estate Inventory Vs. New Listings

New listings in Bellevue jumped to 214 during May.  That's the highest number of new real estate listings in four years.  While it provided a significant boost to the pool of choices for home buyers in Bellevue, it wasn't nearly enough to satiate their appetites.

The boost in real estate listings for May was an 18.8 percent gain over April.  That would have been enough in any of the past 5 or 6 years to increase the total inventory available to buyers.

New sales, however, ate up those listings so quickly that the inventory in Bellevue remained flat.  There continues to be just one month of inventory available to Bellevue home buyers, making the market a virtual month-by-month renewal.  There are nearly as many sales every month as there are homes available in the city for the same time period.

May's new listings in Bellevue were 12 percent higher than during the same month in 2012.  We're seeing the same trend across the greater Seattle metro.  Home sellers have picked up the pace, and understand the opportunity in front of them.  They just haven't been able to create a critical mass to outrun the growing buyer pool.  The first opportunity we may see for that could be in July or August when buyers typically slow as they take summer vacations.

Until then, there are no signs of slowing down.

 

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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North Seattle Real Estate Sales Jump 31.8% in May, Scarce Inventory Drops Below 1 Month

Real estate sales in North Seattle are pushing ahead strongly as we head into summer, echoing the statistics we're seeing from much of the greater Seattle market.  The real estate inventory is particularly scarce in North Seattle, with less than one month of inventory available to buyers, making it one of the tightest local markets.

Residential sales for North Seattle (from NWMLS areas 705 and 710) show 336 homes sold in May of 2013.  That was a large bounce from April, in which we saw a very healthy 255 residential sales.

North Seattle Residential Real Estate Sales, Months of Inventory of Homes For Sale

The spring bounce in home sales, partly due to the season, is still more than cyclically significant.  We don't often see a 31.8 percent increase in sales in a single month.  The trend points to a very competitive summer of selling in North Seattle.

A lack of inventory of homes for sale is straining buyers, though they seem to just become more competitive each month.  The total number of monthly sales in North Seattle now eclipses the average number of homes on the market at any time.  Effectively, the market has reached a point where it is turning over almost every new listing within the first month.  Less than one month of inventory is an extremely skewed seller's market.

This isn't a surprise to potential home buyers in Wallingford, Green Lake, Ballard, or Fremont.   A quick glance at the latest sales in those areas show more than half of them occuring within 1 week on the market.  These are likely all multiple-offer situations.  Bidding wars are not just becoming more prevalent, they've become commonplace.

New Residential Real Estate Listings in North Seattle, Monthly

Still, the rate of new listings in the area does give some hope to home buyers.  As we've documented before, there are just as many new homes coming on the market this year as there were in past years.  Buyers still have new opportunities every week to browse new home listings.  They just have to be far more aggressive to nab the home.

These numbers surprise a lot of house hunters who often state that "there's nothing for sale in the North end."  While they are correct in that there are very few older listings languishing on the market, the facts show that there are actually more new listings available each week this year than there were last year.  Sellers are taking notice of the upswing in prices.  Buyers are responding aggressively.  So far, that trend looks to continue throughout the summer.

 

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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Pending Seattle Home Sales Rise 25.9% Year-Over-Year, 7.5% in May Alone

Pending home sales in Seattle have taken off in recent months, with the number of signed contracts dwarfing the number we saw one year ago.  For the month of May, Seattle had 885 pending sales.  That's an increase of 62 over April's pending home sales, a 7.5 percent increase.

Seattle Active Real Estate Listings vs. Pending Listings, Monthly

Home sales are alway up in Spring as the normal real estate cycle takes its effect, but the increases we're seeing this year are far more than just a cyclical bump.  In May of 2012 there were just 703 pending homes in Seattle.  Compared to May of 2013, that's a 25.8 percent gain in total transactions.  The chart above illustrates what all of those new pending home sales are doing to the amount of active inventory for sale.

As I've discussed before, there are still plenty of new listings coming on the market.  In fact, new listings are keeping pace with past years.  The difference is the speed with which buyers are scooping up homes these days.  The new listings are sold so quickly that we're seeing an inventory that can't keep up.

The rate of new pending sales has caused monthly inventory to fall to nearly the same level as sales themselves.  This puts  us in a nice flat market when there are 6 months of inventory available, but when we only have 1 or 2 months, we have a real estate market that nearly turns itself over every month.

The good news is that these trends always do even out, eventually.  Rising numbers of pending home sales are good for local real estate values, and for home sellers who have been battered for the past few years.  It will only be a matter of time before the sellers in our market get the confidence to list their homes, and grant home buyers a reasonable amount of inventory to select from.

In the meantime, 26 percent year-over-year gains are something to celebrate for the Seattle real estate market.  

 

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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101.5%! Average Seattle Real Estate Sale Now Above Listing Price

Real estate prices in Seattle are growing at an ever-faster pace as the Spring selling season heats up while inventories continue to drop.  The anecdotal stories of bidding wars and all-cash offers are starting to be supported by months of data displaying the effect.

To say that home buyers are getting aggressive would be an understatement.  It appears now that the average real estate transaction in Seattle is a bidding war.  The typical home sale happens in about one week.  The price that the home sells for, on average, is higher than the list price.

List price to sale price ratio is one way to measure the demand in a real estate market.  At 100 percent, the average home seller is getting full price for their home.  In Seattle, we've climbed from 100.6 percent in February to 100.7 percent in March, and 101.5 percent in April.

While this market is anything but typical, it is safe to say that the typical transaction is a bidding war.  There are plenty of homes that do sell for less than full price, and sit on the market for some time.  The majority of transactions today, though, are being sold after the first weekend of marketing.  

We've seen a number of sales in Seattle, Mercer Island, and on the Eastside that have had buyers offer $100,000 more than the list price on a home.  In some cases this was just due to a poor initial listing price by the seller's agent.  In others, it's literally the pent up aggression of a home buyer who can't get outbid again.  Though some might call these tactics reckless, there is a real sense of urgency for a home buyer who is financing a purchase.  Their ability to buy that same home might not exist if they wait too long and interest rates increase significantly.

For the disheartened home buyer, the silver lining is that there are still properties on the market which have been sitting for a month, 90 days, or even longer.  Those home sellers must know that with so much buyer competition, their home is probably overpriced.  There are still opportunities to negotiate on these homes, and to do so without a dozen other offers competing for attention.

 

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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West Seattle Real Estate Inventory Stays Low As Home Sales Soak New Listings

As inventories of available homes for sale across the greater Seattle market remain strikingly low, we are seeing far more new home listings which would normally trigger a climb back into more reasonable inventory levels.  West Seattle has seen an influx of new listings for sale over the past few months, but the pace of home sales has surprisingly not allowed for any real increase in the available inventory for an extended period of time.

West Seattle New Real Estate Listings vs Monthly Home Sales

Most of the Seattle region curently has one to two months of real estate inventory, which is a farcry from a balanced market, which should have a five to six month supply of homes for sale.  The pace of sales has been keeping up with new listings to the point that we haven't seen any measurable changes since early this year.

In West Seattle, we saw a 7 percent jump in new house listings during April.  While that is a strong increase in Spring listings, we also saw a larger increase in home sales.  10.9 percent more homes were sold in West Seattle that month, effectively decreasing the active listing market.  

West Seattle, Months of Inventory, Residential Real Estate

Total inventory in West Seattle (zip codes 98116, 98126, 98136, and 98146) has been near 2 months for most of 2013. Months of inventory is a measure that illustrates the absorption rate for the area:  the market can absorb every listing available today, based on two months of sales at today's pace.  There were 143 home sales in West Seattle in April, so you'd expect there to be around 300 homes actively listed for sale in the area for the market to absorb (buy) them in 2 months.

These current trends could certainly shift as we head into summer and buyers become less seasonally active.  However, the aggressiveness of buyers in West Seattle seems to be growing, not waning.  It wouldn't be a surprise to see the Spring surge of home sales last further into the summer this year than we've seen in years past.

 

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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Issaquah Real Estate Prices Up 13%: Median Home Sale $530,000

The most recent data for home sales in Issaquah points to a market that is on a healthy path to recovery.  As sales continue to rise and marketing times shrink, home prices are showing year-over-year appreciation that we haven't seen in over 6 years.

The median price of a house sold in Issaquah in April was $530,000.  That number bumped up from March's median of $504,500, a 5 percent increases.  We usually see increasing prices as late spring and summer real estate sales pick up, but the long-term trend shows more than just a cyclical gain.

The median price of an Issaquah house just one year ago was $467,500.  During the last 12 month period, the local market saw a 13.4 percent gain in median prices, a very healthy year-over-year increase.  

This certainly doesn't mean that every home in Issaquah has gained 13 percent in value.  Some parts of the market are healthier than others, and there are also shifts in the buying demographic.  These statistics only cover single family houses and townhomes, while condos can be a more erratic measure of local values.

There has also been a shift away from distressed properties:  foreclosures and short sales.  Those sales in past years had been a larger part of the market and their lower price points, though due to inferior quality in many cases, pushed the median price point down in Issaquah.

In other words, while we are definitely seeing values increasing in Issaquah, part of that is due to true real estate appreciation, and part is due to a shift in the structural buying patterns of consumers in the area.  As more home buyers at the upper end of the market get back into buying real estate, we'll continue to see strong appreciation numbers like these.  The current trend points to a likelihood of Issaquah real estate prices rising throughout 2013.

 

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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Pending Home Sales in Bellevue Outpace Solds By 30%

As Bellevue's real estate market continues to heat up in late Spring, we're seeing a building momentum of pending sales.  Closed home sales have been on the rise throughout 2013 and those closings are significantly higher than years past, but the overwhelming number of new signed contracts points to a summer of real estate sales that dwarfs the current market.

Pending Bellevue Homes vs. Homes Sold, Monthly

A total of 6,260 houses and condos were sold in April in Bellevue.  That represents an 8.9 percent gain over March, and is right on track with previous months' gains.  The increased home sales partially represent the usual seasonal cycle of Spring increases, but also a significant bump from the current demand in the market.

Pending sales, in the meantime, rose 5.3 percent during the same month.  Total signed contracts in Bellevue for condos and houses in April stood at 8,167.  That increase was healthy, even if it was a slightly slower rate of gain than closings.

The numbers that really stick out, however, are when solds and pendings are compared directly.  There were 30.4 percent more homes that went under contract in April than those that closed.  In all likelihood that points to a 20 to 30 percent increase in closed sales during May and June.  While pending sales don't always pan out, they're becoming a much better predictor of closed sales than they were in recent years.

Short sales and foreclosures brought a lot of pending sales numbers under scrutiny while the market was in downturn. A large number of those pending transactions never came to fruition, and the stat wasn't a particularly safe metric to use in predicting the next month's sales.  As short sales have become more standardized, however, far more of the transactions are closing, and closing at a faster rate.  With far fewer foreclosures on the market in Bellevue as well, the percentage of traditional resale homes has risen significantly.

From the looks of the current market of pending home sales, it appears thay May, and likely June, could set some records for the highest totals of home sales we've seen in years.  Buyer demand doesn't seem to be slowing, and if the current trends continue, the number of signed contracts will continue to eat up most of the listing inventory in Bellevue through the early summer.

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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Pending Seattle Houses Rise 11% Outpacing Sales, Point to Big Real Estate Summer

As the Spring real estate season heats up in Seattle, the number of homes going under contract continues to rise quickly.  The number of pending contracts for houses in Seattle grew 11 percent from March through April.  While total closed house sales were also growing, the stronger trend line for pending transactions shows a strong growth prospect for the upcoming summer months.  The faster home sales close, the faster buyers scoop up new listings the next month.

Seattle Houses: Pending transactions vs closed sales, monthly

 

For every month of record-breaking sales in Seattle, we're seeing the foreshadowing of a larger month in the pending statistics.  Seattle had 561 houses sold during the month of March, while there were 749 new pending sales that month.  Total closed sales increased to 659 in April, while pending sales made a similar increase to 831.

Projections at this rate show sales of houses across Seattle increasing another 11% in May, without any signs of slowing.  While inventory remains a bottleneck for the market, home buyers are simply becoming more aggressive and buying quickly.

At the current rate of home sales, we could near 1000 Seattle houses being sold in a single month by August.  Of course, sales usually slow down in late summer, and there are a plethora of other economic issues that could affect the current trend.  Still, the prospect of one thousand houses selling in a single month in Seattle is remarkable.  All signs right now point to increased buyer competition and a slight increase in available inventory.  If things stay as they are, the feeding frenzy will continue through the summer.

© SeattleHome.com: - Sam DeBord, Managing Broker, Realtor

Board of Directors, Washington Association of Realtors
Coldwell Banker Seattle: Coldwell Banker Danforth & Associates
Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google + | Sam (at) SeattleHome.com

Source:  NWMLS Stats - The Northwest Multiple Listing Service did not compile or publish this information.

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