1. PRICES: The average sale price for residential real estate was up again in all 5 N. Puget Sound counties and has now been rising every year, in every NPS county, since 2011. It is looking pretty safe to say that 2011 was the bottom of our price market and we will not likely return to those prices anytime in the foreseeable future. The average price for all 5 counties (King, Snohomish, Skagit, Island, Whatcom) peaked at $492k in 2007, dropped to $364 in 2011 and has now risen to $461 as of 2014. Bear in mind, King county has seen a massive price increase over the last 2 years and because of its great volume it carries the other 4 counties that have not risen near as drastically (see graphs).
Going forward, expect to see steady 4-6% price increases for the next couple of years in Snohomish, Skagit, Island & Whatcom counties. King county has pretty much returned to 2007 prices already so its hard not to reason there will be a slight "bubble burst" or at least a significant flattening of the drastic increases there over the last 2 years (up 23% from 2012-2014!).
2.INVENTORY & SALES: Overall, total sales activity remained flat from 2013 to 2014. However, inventory levels have had very different trends. King had a modest increase in the inventory available for home buyers to choose from, Snohomish inventory increased by 22% from 2013-2014 thanks to a lot of new construction picking back up there. While available inventory for Skagit & Island county buyers actually dropped 8% from 2013-2014, because new construction in these counties has not yet caught up with the increased buying activity for the last 4 years. Whatcom inventory levels are flat.
As always, give me a call if you want to talk real estate and see if this market may be the right time for you to make a move? These county stats show you the general trends, but doing a local neighborhood analysis is always critical too!
Comments(1)