The numbers are in from the Northwest Multiple Listing service. In July, we saw major increases in inventory as well as significant increases in closed sales for most areas. Queen Anne, Lake Union and Magnolia had a 18% dip in closed sales versus the same time last year – this followed a strong month in June 2007 with an increase of 23.33% of closed sale compared to June 2006 for Queen Anne.
As for Belltown and the downtown area, there has been consistently higher closed sales (ranging from 39.47% to 157.69%) for the last 3 months compared to same periods last year. Nevertheless, active listings are increasing at a major clip with July inventory more than double last years while sales were up about 50%. Over the next four months, we will start seeing major spikes in closed sales as new construction for projects like the Parc (Sep), Mosler Lofts (Sep), Trio (Nov), and 5th and Madison (Oct) come online.
The months’ inventory in Seattle areas are still significantly below the national average of 8.8 months’ inventory. Months’ inventory is calculated by taking the number of homes available for sale and estimating the time it would take to sell the total number of homes available for sale right now at the current sales volume. Simply put, you divide total active listings by the recent month’s total sold listings.
As you can see from the chart above, months’ inventory is still favoring sellers in Capitol Hill and surrounding neighborhoods and is balanced in the Queen Anne, Belltown, and Downtown areas. Generally, 1-3 months’ inventory is considered a sellers’ market, 4-6 months is a balanced market, and more than 6 months is a buyers’ market.
Hope this helps!
p.s. I’m hosting an open house for a top floor 2BR condo in Belltown this Sunday from 1-4PM. Feel free to swing by and say hello if you’d like to talk about the market or other projects.
Wendy:
Thanks for this post. Question for you – what is driving the large drop in condo prices for Capitol Hill, particularly in light of what seems to be favorable inventory and sales data (at least relative to other neighborhoods).
Is it just smaller and/or older units that are moving (so overall price is falling but price per sq. ft. is still growing?). Would you be able to pull the $ / sq. ft. info?
Thanks!
One reason is we had higher number of smaller square footage units sold in July 2007 than July 2006. The overall price per square foot was higher in July 2007 than 2006.
Wendy,
Have you heard of a condo development that will be happening on Dexter Ave N? I heard that the Olympic Hot Tub Company parking lot and the lot behind it is the new site for condos. (It will be in front of the ‘Cityscape’ condos). Any info would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Stephanie
Hi Stephanie:
Let me get back to you on that. Thanks for stopping by.
Wendy
Hi wendy,
I see that you last wrote about the Gallery condos on 2nd ave. in october 2006. do you have any updates about this project? any info would be appreciated. thanks!
Are you an Anhalt specialist? Are there any located other than Capitol Hill? Are there any built similarly about the same time but not by Anhalt?
Do you have any statistics on Fremont?
thanks