Moving into the Hot Season for Clark County WA's Real Estate in March 2016!
Coming off a winter season with an uncommonly low level of inventory for pre-owned homes in Clark County, the improved weather has seen more home sellers come onto the market. This has helped increase the number of homes available for sale and thus, improved the unit-sales volume. Here are some of the highlights for March 2016:
- Average-Sales Prices are on the move up, showing the 12-month/long-term trend line up 9.36% compared to the prior year, and the 3-Month Moving Average up 13.55% from the same time last year;
- The Inventory for Resale Homes has moved slightly upward, now at 1.3-Months Supply (1.2 last month);
- Approximately 567 Resale Homes were sold in March 2016, which is about 24 (4.4%) more homes than in March 2015.
- REO/Bank Owned property sales were 25 units (4.4% of total); down from 55 (10.1%) in 2015.
- Short Sale /Pre-Foreclosure property sales were 11 units (1.9% of total); down from 34 (6.3%) in 2015.
The March 2016 30-year-fixed home loan benchmark interest rate increased to 3.69% (from 3.66% last month) according to Freddie Mac; compared to 3.77% for March 2015. We are still very close to the lowest point ever seen for this measure.
Our Clark County WA custom charts are up next to help with our analysis. Using data from RMLS we apply "smoothing" techniques to better present 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 March 2016
With the available number of homes on the market shrinking to incredible lows in the winter season, it is no wonder that we such a large decrease from the peak of last year to March of this year, where the unit-sales trend is expected to begin is typical seasonal rise upwards. In one sense we do see the turnaround point at a higher level since 2009 or earlier.
We are now seeing the Average Sales price in Clark County forging into the highest prices seen for resale homes. From the quick notes at the start of this post, the percentage gain over last year is also increasing (a little too strong for a healthy market, in this writer's opinion).
Clark County Home Sales - Average Sales Price Trend March 2016
In February 2012 the low-point was seen at $200,061; while today the same marker is at $306,707 - a difference of $106,646 - or, 53.3% in Total; or, 13% per year.
We are now starting to see an increase in homes and condos listed. Will there be enough of them to quench the demand from local growth and the in-migration to this great area?
Clark County Home Sales Inventory & Days on Market in March 2016
The final three charts (above) come from the RMLS statistical package.
New Listings and Pending Listings in the first chart are clearly both increasing strongly, with a narrow gap between the two.
Moving to the second chart we continue to see that the average price for New Listings are measurably higher than the recent average closed-prices.
The Average/Median Days-On-Market, shown in the last chart shows that sales are quite brisk for March!
More information from RMLS on the Clark County real estate scene has been posted here: RMLS Market Action Report on our website.
PS - You are invited to visit our page for Clark County WA complete Real Estate Listings where it is 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 - Perhaps you are thinking of Selling or, are you curious to know what your home is worth? We offer a no-cost, no-obligation Vancouver WA Home Valuation Report, and invite you to try it out!
The information and 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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