For the first time this year, the number of Seattle condos for sale dropped below same period last year. This is a hopeful sign since the last thing we need is more people putting their property into the sluggish system. August 2008 numbers showed total active inventory of 1,503, 1.83% lower than August 2007. Looking at the numbers earlier this year, inventory was over 60% higher than the same time in 2007. This is largely due a number of reasons: developers holding off on their projects and waiting out on the market, a number of completed condo projects turning into apartments, apartments that were intended to convert to condo reverting back to apartments, and unsold inventory in completed condo projects becoming available as rental units.
The median price for last month’s closed sales of condominiums was $310,000, a drop of 6.03% from a year ago when the median price was $329,900. Comparing to the previous two months this year, median prices were about the same — $310,000 for August and $299,975 for July. The number of home sale closings in September was almost half of same time last year at 191.
The volume of year-over-year pending sales transactions for September was down 14.50%. On the other hand, months inventory (how many months it would take to sell all the inventory currently on the market) has improved from 8.9 in August to 7.8 in September.
Overall, September numbers indicate a modest shrinkage in inventory with pending sales still lower than last year but better than the last two months and median prices experiencing negative single digit % reductions.
The recent credit market crisis and negative news report has definitely hampered many home buyers’ confidence. Most now believe that prices will continue to drop and have adopted a wait-and-see approach. As we are moving to the seasonal slow period of the year, we probably won’t be seeing activity picking up until early next year.
I’m interested in knowing how many condos in the market now vs 10/06, as oppose to last year?
Ah yes, inventory is going down as are prices. In other words, both supply AND demand are going down, but demand is going down more rapidly than supply! Ouch.
There were a total of 406 condos for October 2006.
Wendy,
The bottom two lines of the chart is not visible when clicked on. Is it possible to put the picture in a scrollable window?
It’s working now.
I encourage everyone to review http://www.trulia.com Its a wealth of information stemming from all real estate markets across the U.S. I also encourage everyone who would like to do the research to look at Orlando, FL and Miami, FL. Then, look at Seattle. What you will find is a curve (across all market factors) that mirrors or imitates that of those other two cities. The only difference is that Seattle’s curve is lagging by almost 1 year exactly. Which would confirm what I have been saying that our economy in Seattle lags national trends by 12 months. You will also notice that percentage appreciation was IDENTICAL with Seattle compared to Orlando AND market peaks were exactly 12 months apart. This is an EXCELLENT resource to determine when our market is going to bottom out. Given the information in this singular resource (not to mention many others), can anyone objectively predict when that time will be? I’ll be impressed with the person who can respond first with the correct answer! 🙂 I’ll check back later today to see who’s done their research…
One more thing, I should direct those who want to play the game today to go to the “Stats and Trends” tab when visiting http://www.trulia.com DANG, ITS A GREAT SITE AND THIS ONE IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!