Home sales in Kirkland are continuing to outpace past years, as the number of sold homes are nearly reaching the number of active listing each month. This trend of decreasing real estate inventory has reached a critical point in Kirkland, where home sellers are often able to sell within one week, and with multiple offers, as buyer demand seems to continue to grow with barely enough new listing support to keep up.
Kirkland saw 154 home sales in April, a 14 percent increase over March. Even more strikingly, April's sales were 31 percent higher than at the same time last year, when just 118 homes were sold.
Kirkland Active Real Estate Listings vs. Sold Homes, Monthly, 2010-Present
While we are still seeing a healthy number of new listings coming on the market each month in Kirkland, the rate of sales is eating up that inventory just as fast as it's listed. The majority of listings are selling within the first two weeks on the market. Even with new active listings matching the rates of 2011 and 2012, the short marketing time of these new listings has dropped the monthly inventory in Kirkland down to about 1.5 months. A healthy market is usually said to contain 5 or 6 months' inventory, balancing buyers and sellers.
Clearly this signals a strong shift to a sellers' market in Kirkland, but the lack of inventory actually takes it to an extremely out-of-balance market. As total home sales continue to inch closer to total active listings, we reach a point where nearly the entire real estate inventory in Kirkland is turning over every month.
This isn't to say that an "extreme" seller's market is a bad thing for Kirkland. We've seen some extremely negative times in the local real estate market in recent years. This lack of inventory is causing what most homeowners have been hoping for: significant home price increases. Home prices have risen in double digit percentages across the Eastside and Seattle in the past year. Projections for this year are the same.
As interest rates continue to affect home buyers' buying power in a very significant way, we're likely to see fierce competition for homes as we continue through 2013. Kirkland homeowners would be wise to take this into account when analyzing whether or not this is the time to list their homes for sale. Mortgage interest rates, and their effect on buyers' ability to purchase a home in a higher price range, may be the most significant factor in how long this upward trend lasts.
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