Slowing Pace for Real Estate in Clark County WA in September 2015!
The data are now clearly showing that the Clark County real estate market has begun the typical slowing for this time of year, at least for unit-sales-volume. Here are the highlights for September 2015:
- Average-Sales Prices are showing with the 3-Month Moving Average now trending down, although up 6.93% for the past year; and the 12-Month Moving Average is up 8.51% compared to a year ago;
- The Inventory for Resale Homes has actually reduced and is now at 2.2-Months Supply - Yes, this is a Seller's Market!
- Approximately 585 Resale Homes were sold in September 2015, which is about 14 (+2.5%) more homes than in September 2014.
- REO/Bank Owned property sales were 23 units (3.5% of total); down from 50 (8.8%) in 2014.
- Short Sale /Pre-Foreclosure property sales were 20 units (3.4% of total); down from 30 (5.3%) in 2014.
The September 2015 30-year-fixed home loan benchmark interest rate was at 3.89% (down ever so slightly from 3.91% last month) according to Freddie Mac; compared to 4.16% for September 2014. Until The Federal Reserve makes their move to raise interest rates, we may continue to see these low home loan rates.
Our custom real estate charts for Clark County WA are now presented below. Using RMLS data we apply a simple "smoothing" technique to allow a better presentation of the short-term trend (3-month moving average in Red); and long-term trend (12-month moving average in Blue).
Clark County Home Sales - Units Sold Trend September 2015
Over the past 12 months we've observed that the market's near-term "bottom" last Winter was at a higher level than seen in previous years. This provided a much higher "launching point" for the Rally of 2015.
On the national level, the National Aassociation of Realtors reports that sales of existing homes bounced back up in September from the prior month's slowdown. Nationally available inventory was reduced from 5.1 months to 4.8 months. Given the Clark County areas much lower level of 2.2; we can well surmise that our local area is seeing a relatively greater level of sales activety for existing homes.
The next chart shows the Average Home Sales Price for Clark County, with the short-term (3-months in Red) line pointing to the seasonal easing of prices.
Clark County Home Sales - Average Sales Price Trend September 2015
With over 3-1/2 years of steadily increasing home prices, it is hard to wonder how much longer this will last. Since Clark County's economic and real estate activity
is closely related to the adjacent "larger sibling" Portland Oregon to the South, we suspect that when we see a strong slow-down for Portland, we'll also be seeing a slow-down here.
Finally, RMLS provides few "built-in" charts, and the 3 charts below are from that statistical package.
Clark County Home Sales Inventory & Days on Market in September 2015
The first chart shows the robust nature of the market rally so far in 2015.
The second chart shows that average sales prices are softening - at least slightly this year, as we typically see in the Fall.
The final chart shows the Average/Median Days-On-Market and that we've almost had 6 months in a row with the Median Days on Market below 20; with September's number just above 20!
For more detailson the Clark County real estate scene we have also posted the current RMLS Market Action Report.
PS - You are invited to visit Real Estate For Sale in Clark County WA where we have made it Very Easy to search by City, Neighborhood or by Category, with homes and real estate listings from the entire RMLS. Sign-up Not Required! The property and home listings shown are provided via many updates each day, and you will be e-mailed hourly with any new matches once you've signed up for a home search.
These are the MLS Listings for these great towns in Clark County: Battle Ground WA Homes | Brush Prairie WA Homes | Camas WA Homes | Hockinson WA Homes | La Center WA Homes | Ridgefield WA Homes | Vancouver WA Homes | Washougal WA Homes | Yacolt WA Homes | Amboy WA Homes
PPS - We do answer our phone or get back to you quickly! Don't delay with your Home Selling or Buying Plans - Call Us Soon!
The charts in this Clark County WA real estate update (prepared by Vancouver Real Estate Broker, John Slocum, CRS, SFR, our resident statistician) are based on home sales recorded in the Clark County WA MLS system (RMLS), excluding sales of mobile home; and shows the purchase activity since 2009; charting the 3 month Moving average number of sales, and the 12 month Moving average. This "smoothing" of the trend-data helps illustrate the short-term and longer term trends in Clark County's real estate market.
Disclaimer: as with any real estate statistics, we do our best to provide the best representation at the time the data was acquired and compiled. The data and reports are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
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