Home Sales Activity and Perhaps the Rise in Prices has Peaked for the Season in Vancouver Washington
We currently see Active Listings are down slightly from last year at this same month; with Pending sales up slightly; and Closed Sales down about 6 and 2/3rds percent. The Average Sold price for this month is 1.62% ($8,786) Higher than last year
The next chart we have shows the 3-month Average for Pending Sales, by year, as far back as 2018. For those of you new to this chart, it shows the "High Years" were during the "COVID" era when the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates to historic lows, which bumped up Home Sales; and then in the first Half of 2022 the Fed slammed on the brakes and we see home sales activity dropped to a "new normal" which as well below what we saw pre "Covid."
As we know, not all Pending Sales actually become Closed sales. Our long-running Average Closed Home Sales chart below is another way to show how Slow the current real estate market has become. The Red line shows the 3-month rolling average for closed sales for pre-owned homes in Vancouver; while the Blue line shows the 12-month rolling average. Both lines are showing the past two years at the lowest level of activity in over a decade. Notably, the 12-month trend line has stopped falling and has been moving horizontally; strongly suggesting that the sales quantity won't fall any further at this level of interest rates.
Moving on our final chart shows the Sales Price activity for pre-owned homes in Vancouver. The 3-month rolling average (in red) has just moved down from a new high in July, which is a reflection of the market having just a few more Buyers available than what the current restricted supply of homes is accommodating. In other words, with the current level of high interest rates there are indeed Fewer Buyers but, that number is still exceeding the readily available supply of homes thus, prices have still been rising in general.
Additional Data for this month not shown above include: Active Inventory is at a 2.4 months level, which is much higher than what we saw last year; and Average Days on the Market has been slowing and is now at 36 Days; with the Median at 18 Days.
As of this writing the Fed just signaled a 50 basis point cut in rates. A Rate Cut had been signaled so, some of that has been built into the current declining rate trend. We'll want to be watching to see how much farther mortgage / home-loan rates will actually fall.
Thank you for visiting our August 2024 Real Estate and Home Sales Market Report for Vancouver WA.
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