Hopeful buyers in the Olympia, WA area are still finding the inventory of available homes to be a little on the skimpy side. I was taking a look at some data from our NWMLS to see how the numbers are looking - and they are definitely looking daunting!
If someone is looking for a home in the greater Olympia area (this includes Lacey & Tumwater), and wants something ready to move into ( I excluded "fixer" condition homes and also those under construction and not yet complete), and if they prefer it not to be a bank owned home (some bank owned would be out anyway based on condition) - the total number of active listings came in at 377.
OK, that doesn't sound so horribly bad does it? That's a LOT of houses. But wait.....if your top purchase price is $300,000 the number of available choices shrinks to 216. If you can only go to $250,000, now you are down to only 141 choices. Worst of all is what happens if your purchasing power caps at $200,000 (not at all an unusual price point for buyers). Well, for all the buyers in that price category hoping to find and buy a home - you are all fighting over the measly 56 currently active listings!
No wonder that the average time on the market for sales closed in the last 30 days was just 74 days (and that includes typically longer market time categories like short sales, new construction and those that started out priced WAY too high for the market).
Given the sparse inventory, I am not surprised that many buyers are having a hard time finding anything they would want to buy - and then actually succeeding in buying it without being involved in a multiple buyer bidding war.
If YOU are beginning to think about buying a home in the Olympia area, I'd love to talk with you so we can strategize together how best to help you actually become a home owner!
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