Celebrate the good things in our Seattle housing market! Most likely you have heard of the Federal Housing Finance Agency that publishes the Case Schiller Index statistical reports on a quarterly basis. I get this delivered to my email inbox once a quarter, and the reports are useful in helping to see the big picture. The good news is that home values were up over the previous month by 0.8% in July, adding to a new emerging upward trendline that now encompasses 5 months. This has coupled with the previous four months to produce a beautiful statistical smile that matches horizontally to the upswing in housing values back in March, 2004 three years before the housing correction took hold (the national market actually topped out in April 2007).
This is confirming data that we are seeing here locally as our housing inventory has dropped to around a 4-month supply. I remind everyone I speak to that housing is very localized and can still be dropping in certain zip codes when the broader market is achieving consistent improvement. The Pacific Northwest housing market for instance, was still rising into 2008 when the rest of the nation was experiencing decliniing housing values. Similarly so, we usually follow California when their market is experiencing recovery. For the twelve months preceding this August, our housing actually dropped 6.7%, while areas in California were gaining on us.
Now with record low interest rates, which would have been there without Operation Twist I dare say, we now have the convergence of the lowest pricing coupled with the lowest interest rates. What more could a buyer want? JOBS, you say? Well, yes, that is the critical thing, having a job and healthy enough income to qualify and a down payment in the bank. For those of you who are reading this, this is the opportunity of a lifetime to get the real estate thing right in your life, if you are lucky enough to be able to do it.
We are happy to provide buyer's agency services to those interested, and look forward to having the chance to exercise our knowledge on your behalf. Call now and I will see that you have the best stats in your hand when you need them, and a property you can't live without.
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