This article gets in depth analysis from Director of the Washington Center of Real Estate, Glenn Crellin. Having worked for Glenn in college I can tell you that no one knows more about the real estate market in Washington.

Washington homes reach record affordability
By AUBREY COHEN, seattlepi.com
Updated 03:07 p.m., Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Washington homes are more affordable they have been since the Washington Center for Real Estate Research started tracking the numbers in 1994, and they’re likely to get even cheaper, the center said Wednesday.

The median price of an existing home was $226,900 in Washington and $348,300 in King County, down 7.6 percent and 7.2 percent, respectively, from a year earlier. The price fell 0.6 percent statewide and rose 1 percent in the county from the first quarter, without adjusting for seasonal variations.

Factoring in prices and interest rates, the typical household made a record 154.7 percent of the income needed to buy the median-price home statewide and a near-record 124 percent of the income needed in King County, the center reported. The typical first-time buyer household made a record 85 percent of the income needed for a starter home in Washington and near-record 66.4 percent in King County.

Center Director Glenn Crellin said in February that he thought potential house payments in the Seattle area had hit bottom, because rising mortgage interest rates would more than cancel out further price declines.

Continued low rates and the Federal Reserve Board’s Tuesday announcement that they will keep the federal funds rate near 0 percent into 2013 have changed that, he said Wednesday. “I think it’s probably going to go down a little bit more.”

Sales have been stronger in lower price ranges, skewing the median sales price, Crellin said. “When you look at the median price statistics, you can’t really infer anything about the price of individual homes.”

But prices are falling, and the weak economy and high number of foreclosure homes will continue to contribute to this slide, he said. “I think we’re going to see buyers cont to sit on the sidelines waiting for other economic conditions to stabilize, waiting for house prices to continue to decline.”

What does this mean for people thinking about jumping into home ownership?

“Every purchase has to be evaluated individually,” Crellin said. “Folks that are interested in buyung may look around and say, hey, this is a great deal on a home that’s exactly what I’m looking for. So I would encourage potential buyers to go out and see what’s available in the marketplace.”

Another factor to consider is that, while home prices are falling, rents are headed the other way. The median King County apartment rent was $1,049 this spring, up 1.5 percent from last fall and 3.1 percent from a year earlier, according to Dupre + Scott Apartment Advisors.

One group of buyers that’s doing more than looking is investors, who more-often pay cash for homes, Crellin said. “I’ve never seen the proportion of sales being reported as cash sales.”

But this is not enough to boost sales totals, which fell statewide by a seasonally adjusted 4 percent from the first quarter and 11.3 percent from a year earlier. King County was stronger, with sales down 2.6 percent from the prior quarter and 2.1 percent from the second quarter of 2010.

King County’s totals are “quite astounding considering that a year ago we were still in the final stages of the (home buyer) tax-credit program,” Crellin said.

Also Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors reported that the national median existing house price was $171,900 in the second quarter, down 2.8 percent from a year earlier. Its nationwide affordability index reached 176.6, the third highest level on record (going back to 1970), after the first quarter of 2011 and fourth quarter of 2010.

“Median home prices have been moving up and down in a relatively narrow range in many markets, which shows a stabilization trend,” Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in the report.

The association noted that homes in or under threat of accounted for 33 percent of second quarter sales, down from 39 percent in the first quarter but up from 32 percent a year earlier, and these homes typically carry a discount of about 20 percent.

Nationwide sales volume for houses and condos fell by a seasonally adjusted 5.4 percent from the first quarter and 12.7 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market should be stronger, Yun said. “With home prices in a broad trough and historically low mortgage interest rates, high housing affordability conditions and rising rents could stimulate a more rapid sales recovery if banks get back into the business of lending to more creditworthy borrowers.”

Association President Ron Phipps hammered on this point, saying: “It’s frustrating for many creditworthy potential home buyers to realize that when they’re ready to make a move, banks remain risk averse. People with good jobs, long-term plans and who are willing to stay well within their means deserve an opportunity to realize their American dream of home ownership. When banks return to normal and safe but sensible lending standards, housing will be able to contribute its traditional share to economic growth.”

While many analysts have pointed to the weak economy as hindering the housing market, Yun flipped the equation, saying: “The direction of the economy will be determined principally by the housing market recovery, and indications now are pointing toward only a modest recovery.”

Read more real estate news. Visit seattlepi.com’s home page for more Seattle news.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/realestate/article/Washington-homes-reach-record-affordability-1831023.php#ixzz1VJORgc3K

It will be interesting to see if rents continue to skyrocket and rates remain low if the third quarter can reflect such conditions. Traditionally we have seen a slow 3rd and 4th quarter so hopefully there are additional factors to get buyers out and buying.

Seattle Real Estate Tyler Freed

Link to the original article

Home sales are on track to outperform last year, even though the market doesn’t have the benefit of the home buyer tax credit. This is thanks to sustained economic growth, the slowly recovering jobs picture, and historically high affordability conditions, NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun told a packed room on Thursday during the Residential Economic Update at the 2011 REALTORS® Midyear Legislative Meetings.

Although unemployment remains high at about 9 percent, the country is seeing steady job growth. More than 100,000 jobs are being created a month, and the U.S. could see 1.5 million net new jobs this year, Yun said.

Frank Nothaft, chief economist for secondary mortgage market company Freddie Mac, who spoke later at the same session, said he expects a bit more robust job growth, closer to 2 million, but both economists said the unemployment rate will remain high despite the new jobs because of the size of the hole that needs to be filled. More than 8 million jobs were lost during the 2008-09 recession, and new entrants to the labor force, such as recent college graduates, add another 2 million to the hole.

Both Yun and Nothaft are predicting home sales a little higher than 5 million, which would improve upon last year even though 2010 had the artificial stimulus of the tax credit, they said.

Historically high affordability is one of the key drivers of the improved sales performance. NAR’s affordability index is at its highest level ever, at nearly 170, which means households earning the national median income have 170 percent of the income needed to buy a home at the national median price.

Behind the affordable conditions are low interest rates, which today are below 5 percent, and home prices that, while rising in some areas (like booming North Dakota), remain quite a bit below their peak during the housing boom. The high number of distressed homes (those in which the value is below the amount of equity the owners have in them) is one of the main reasons values are struggling to get off the bottom.

Yun said that overly strict lending standards are holding back more robust sales: 2010-vintage mortgage originations have a lower serious delinquency rate than in 2002, when serious delinquencies were barely above 1 percent, and 2011 is shaping up to be another stellar year in delinquency rates, but lenders are still requiring extraordinarily high credit scores and putting up other hurdles to obtaining financing. “If lenders would just go back to the normal standards that were in place prior to the boom years, sales might be 20 percent higher,” Yun said.

Although he’s seeing no signs of lenders opening up on lending yet, Yun said conditions are in place for lenders to start easing up. They’re sitting on plenty of money, and they could be reaching the point at which they can earn more revenues at reasonable risk levels by making home loans than by doing other things with their money. “I’m not seeing that yet, but that is a potential upside,” he said

In some ways, the heroes of housing today are the all-cash buyers. They’re 40 percent of the market now, so they’re helping to drive sales despite the tight availability of financing. Yun thinks all-cash buyers are investors who either can’t get financing or think they can get a better return on their cash by putting it into real estate than they can in savings instruments or stocks, particularly given the rock-bottom process of so many houses. He also thinks some empty-nest baby boomers might be acting as the lender for their children, buying a home for them on an all-cash basis and taking back a note. “I’m seeing this anecdotally. I don’t know if it’s a trend,” he said.

Yun’s forecast: The U.S. economy will grow about 2.5 percent this year, with between 1.5 and 2 million new jobs added to the economy. Home sales will reach about 5.1 million, up 7-10 percent from last year, with home values staying virtually unchanged. Nothaft had a largely similar forecast.

— Robert Freedman, REALTOR® Magazine

Seattle Real Estate Tyler Freed

Northwest MLS Brokers Report $17 Billion in Home Sales During 2009
KIRKLAND, Wash. (Jan. 26, 2010) – Members of Northwest Multiple Listing Service tallied more than 52,000 closed sales of single family homes and condominiums during 2009, about 3.7 percent fewer than the total for 2008. Last year’s completed transactions had a combined sales value of more than $17 billion.
In its annual statistical summary, Northwest MLS reported 45,222 sales of single family homes totaling more than $15.1 billion, plus 6,883 condo sales valued at nearly $1.9 billion. The report reflects activity of members in 19 counties encompassing nearly eighty percent of the state’s population. (NWMLS expanded services to two more counties, Ferry and Clallam, at year end.)
Although the number of sales nearly matched 2008 levels (down 3.7 percent), the dollar volume fell by double digits, dropping nearly 14.6 percent. Closed sales in 2008 totaled more than $19.9 billion, but fell to about $17.2 billion last year. Brokers attribute the drop to a combination of factors, including lower selling prices and higher volumes of distressed sales, such as short sales and foreclosures.
Among the 19 counties in the NWMLS recap report, San Juan claimed the highest median sales price for single family homes that sold there last year, at $443,500. King County followed with a median sales price of $380,000 for last year’s closed sales. System-wide, the median price (half sold for more, half for less) for single family homes that sold last year was $280,000.
For condos, the median selling price was $235,000 across the 19-county market area, down 7.3 percent from 2008 when the median price was $253,500. King County accounted for six of every 10 condo sales, and they sold for a median price of $254,000.
Among other highlights in the annual MLS summary:
• More than eight of every 10 transactions (83 percent) was a “co-op” sale, meaning it was listed by one office and sold by a different office.
• Single family homes accounted for nearly 87 percent of total sales area-wide, measured by units, and nearly 89 percent of total dollar volume.
• Member-brokers added 117,583 new listings of single family homes and condos to the inventory during 2009.
• Members represented an average of 39,212 home sellers (active listings) each month.
• Reported 802 sales of single family homes that fetched $1 million or more. The MLS map area for Bellevue/west of I-405 had the highest volume of million-dollar plus sales (120 closed sales). The highest priced home sale in the MLS system for 2009 was $15,560,000 for a home on Mercer Island.
• Reported 66 sales of condos that sold for $1 million or more; 392 condos sold for $500,000 or more. The highest priced condo sale last year was in downtown Seattle. It sold for $9,750,000.
-more-
page two (2000 Annual Highlights) Jan. 26, 2010
• Newly built homes sold by NWMLS members commanded a sales price about 12 percent higher than existing homes (resales): The median sales price of a pre-owned, 3-bedrooom home (built 2007 or earlier) ranged from $140,000 in Grays Harbor County to $512,000 in San Juan County. The median price of a 3-bedroom new home (built 2008 or 2009) ranged from $158,225 in Grant County to $655,000 in San Juan County.
• Comparing school districts, the most expensive single-family homes, based on last year’s closed sales, are located in the Mercer Island District, where the median sales price was $832,500. It was followed by the Bellevue School District, which had a median sales price of $569,000.
• In the four-county Puget Sound region (King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap), about 15.3 percent of single family homes sold for under $200,000 – more than double the 7.3 percent from 2008.
• Another indicator of activity, pending sales, showed a 16 percent increase in 2009 compared to 2008. Members reported 75,345 pending sales during 2009 (offers accepted, but not yet closed), up from 64,872 pendings for the previous year.
• The pace of sales as measured by “months supply” (an estimate of how long it would take for all inventory of active listings to sell at the current pace assuming no new inventory is added) showed improvement in many areas. In the four-county Puget Sound region, there was a 5.36 months supply at year-end; at the end of 2008 the months supply was at 7.9 months. System-wide, at the end of 2009 there was a 6.25 months supply, which compares to 8.66 months supply at the end of 2008. (Economists consider a supply of 3-to-6 months to be a balanced market, meaning the market favors neither buyers nor sellers.)
Northwest Multiple Listing Service, owned by its member brokers, is the largest full-service MLS in the Northwest. Its membership includes more than 24,000 brokers and agents. The organization, based in Kirkland, currently serves 21 counties in western and central Washington. Ferry and Clallam counties are now included in the monthly statistical reports.
###

Seattle Real Estate Tyler Freed

Tax credit fuels home-sales bounce, but will it be just a blip?
The first-time homebuyers’ tax credit helped resuscitate the Seattle real-estate market in 2009. The market remains fragile, most insiders say, and the outlook for late 2010, after the credits are scheduled to expire, is especially murky.

By Eric Pryne

Seattle Times business reporter

In residential real-estate annals, 2009 probably will be recorded as the Year of the Credit.

In February, Congress approved an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers in hopes of kick-starting moribund home sales.

“It worked,” Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate, said at a recent industry forum. “That’s what completely activated the market.”

It sprang to life in the spring. After nearly two years of declining sales, buyers bought 20 percent more houses in King County between June and November than during the same six months in 2008.

Was that a blip, or the start of a trend? That’s what real-estate insiders are asking as they gear up for 2010.

Last month, Congress extended the credit, which was due to expire Nov. 30, for seven months, and adopted a new, $6,500 credit for many repeat buyers. Partly because of those incentives, many observers anticipate more houses will be sold during at least the first part of 2010 than in the same months of 2009.

But that’s not necessarily saying much: sales volumes last winter were dismal. The market remains fragile, most insiders say, and the outlook for late 2010, after the credits are scheduled to expire, is especially murky.

“We still have a bit of a ways to go to figure out how to get out of the pickle we’re in,” said George Rolfe, director of the University of Washington’s Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies.

Here’s a look back and ahead:

Home prices

After plummeting 20 percent in 18 months from its summer 2007 peak, the median price of a single-family home sold in King County slipped only slightly more in 2009.

It was $382,500 in January and dropped to $370,000 in November, according to the broker-owned Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

And next year? “They’re not going to go up,” Jill Wood, Windermere Real Estate president, said of home prices. “They’ve probably leveled off for now.”

Even that assessment may be optimistic, others say. Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University, said it’s more likely that prices will continue to decline through midyear.

The asking prices for some more expensive homes will start to drop, he said, as owners hit hard by the recession anticipate resets of their option adjustable-rate mortgages and inch closer to delinquency.

But houses above $400,000 such in close-in, desirable neighborhoods as Ballard and Green Lake should fare well because there’s little available inventory on the market there, said Steve Tolliver of Yucon Appraisal Service

Tim Ellis, editor of the Seattle Bubble real-estate blog, said median prices in Seattle could slip another 3 to 8 percent next year. But all bets are off if the federal government steps in again, he added.

“More and more, it’s becoming evident that the government is really interested in keeping home prices from falling farther,” Ellis said.

And 2010 is an election year. “Who knows what they may try to pull out of the hat,” he said.

Home sales

The first-time buyers’ credit wasn’t the only reason sales surged in 2009. Even without it, lower prices and record low interest rates probably would have led to an increase, Ellis said.

But the credit clearly was a catalyst. Crellin said his center’s research suggests it was responsible for nearly one-third of all the sales in the state in July, August and September.

The question now is, how many prospective buyers remain? “Were we stealing future demand?” Seattle land-use economist Matthew Gardner asked at a recent forum.

Crellin doesn’t expect the surge the credit induced to continue unabated. Before the tax break was extended and expanded at the last minute, the real-estate industry did an effective job before then of persuading prospective buyers they had to close by the end of November to claim it, he said.

So most first-timers who intended to buy probably already have, Crellin said. And the chain reaction you’d normally expect from the surge, with sellers of entry-level homes looking to move up, could be weaker than usual, he added.

Some sellers were banks: Nearly 16 percent of all the homes sold in the King, Snohomish and Pierce counties in October were foreclosure resales, according to Seattle-based Zillow.com.

And, thanks to the downturn in prices since 2007, many sellers had little or no equity to use for anything new, Crellin said. Some are renters now.

But he still expects home sales will exceed last year’s numbers at least through March.

Windermere’s Wood anticipates strong sales through midyear — in part because of the tax credits that expire June 30, in part due to “the sense of confidence people have now.” The typical December slowdown hasn’t materialized this year, she said.

As for the second half of 2010, “I have absolutely no clue,” Wood said. Much depends on interest rates and the stock market’s performance, she said.

“It’s all going to come down to jobs, jobs, jobs,” said James Stroupe, a Windermere condo specialist. “There are a lot of buyers out there that are still scared.”

Foreclosures

They aren’t as commonplace here as in Florida or Las Vegas or Phoenix, and it’s highly unlikely they ever will be. Still, the number of foreclosures in the Seattle area could rise in 2010, sending ripples through the market.

About 2.2 percent of all loans in Washington were in foreclosure in the third quarter, according to a Mortgage Bankers Association survey. That’s about half the national rate.

But another 3.2 percent of Washington loans were 90 days or more past due. They could be foreclosures-in-waiting unless government loan-modification programs reach more homeowners, observers say.

And if those homes are foreclosed and later put up for sale at bargain-basement prices, they could push the entire market lower, Ellis said.

There’s already a substantial “shadow inventory” of homes that lenders have repossessed, but haven’t yet listed, said mortgage banker Jeff Bell of Cobalt Mortgage in Kirkland. Their disposition could affect the broader market as well, he said.

But Wood said she’s more concerned about the impact on prices of “short sales” — sales for less than the owner owes the lender.

Mortgages

Interest rates dropped below 5 percent at times in 2009, and observers don’t see how they can fall any farther. Some expect them to remain where they are; others forecast modest increases.

Bell expects rates will remain relatively flat for at least the first half of 2010, and probably the entire year. The Federal Reserve has given no hint of increases anytime soon, he said, and “we don’t see economic conditions changing to the point where it would warrant higher interest rates.”

Crellin expects rates will rise. But that could be good for sales, he said, because it would spur some prospective buyers to act while they still can.

Renting

It’s a good time to be a tenant, said Tom Cain of Apartment Insights Washington, a research firm.

Vacancies rose and rents slipped in 2009. Expect more of the same in 2010, he said.

On top of the economic downturn and high unemployment, which depress demand, 3,300 new apartments in complexes of 50 units or more are under construction and likely to be completed next year.

That’s in addition to 5,600 units delivered through the end of November this year. “That’s a huge supply relative to what we’ve seen in the past,” Cain said.

Next year would be shaping up as a downer for landlords even without all the new product, he added. While some former homeowners are becoming renters, he said, many renters are buying condos and houses, enticed by lower prices, low interest rates and the new federal tax credits.

But most buyers have learned to approach real estate differently now than they did before the crash, said the UW’s Rolfe.

Before the collapse a “lottery-ticket mentality” prevailed, he said: “Most home buying for five, maybe 10 years was motivated by the anticipation that you were going to get rich.

“That seems to have been wrung out of the market now.”

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com

Seattle Real Estate Tyler Freed

More Seattle neighborhoods considered affordable
The King County housing slump made six geographic areas affordable for those earning the county’s median household income of $68,821 in 2008. When the market was sizzling in 2007, only Auburn was considered affordable, a Seattle Times analysis showed.

By Lisa Pemberton Butler; and Justin Mayo

Special to The Seattle Times; Seattle Times staff reporter

Demi Troncoso commuted to Seattle from a Tacoma rental for nearly three years before buying a home in Auburn’s Lakeland Hills subdivision last October.

“I was waiting until the bubble burst,” said Troncoso, a safety consultant for the state Department of Labor and Industries. “I wanted to catch it before things started normalizing again.”

The newly built, four-bedroom home was bank-owned, and at the height of the real-estate market fetched a price of $410,000. Troncoso paid $330,000.

For middle-class folks such as Troncoso, the burst in the regional housing bubble means more homes and neighborhoods are within their financial reach.

King County’s median household income in 2008 was $68,832, according to estimates by the state’s Office of Financial Management. At that income level, buyers had easy accessibility to six geographic areas whose median home prices were between $248,450 and $290,500, a Seattle Times home-price analysis showed. Median means half are more, and half are less. But in 2007, when the market was sizzling, only one area — Auburn, where the median price was $266,750 that year — was considered affordable. And in 2005, median wage earners could afford to buy in 14 neighborhoods, including Seattle’s Georgetown/Delridge area.

“It was unsustainably unaffordable in 2006 and 2007, and it has come back to where it’s looking more normal now,” said Todd Sinai, an associate professor of real estate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “These pendulums tend to swing from one side to pretty far over to the other side. The pendulum should swing to the side of increasingly affordable in the next year or so.”

But the lower home prices are offset by a struggling economy, Sinai said. The state’s unemployment rate climbed to 9.1 percent in April, with at least 317,890 people looking for work. As a result, many would-be buyers are taking pay cuts, or are afraid their jobs could be axed next.

Meantime, lenders have clamped down on their mortgage requirements.

“That begs the question: ‘Affordable to whom?’ ” Sinai said. “Housing is affordable if you can attain credit, but that’s not always easy.”

In 2008, all of the King County neighborhoods with affordable median prices were south of Seattle.

Auburn topped the list, with a median home price of $248,450, followed by North Burien, Des Moines/West Kent, Algona/Pacific, Enumclaw and Twin Lakes.

“All of those areas, except for Enumclaw, have always kind of been lower (in price),” said Laura Papritz, an agent with John L. Scott Real Estate’s Kent North office. “But because everything moved up, you were out of that first-time homebuyer’s price range. Now that everything has self-corrected, you’re seeing some of those areas drop down.”

South King County has been deluged with foreclosures and short sales, which have driven home prices down even further, said Loren Ellingson, an agent with Redfin.

In Auburn alone, prices have declined nearly 25 percent since the summer of 2007, according to the online brokerage.

“My investment home has nearly lost its entire equity due to the comparables of bank-owned properties and short-sale listings selling for well below what the sellers originally bought the home for,” Ellingson said. “I do feel, though, that a buyer can take advantage of these drops in home prices and get a screaming deal on homes in most of South King County.”

That’s what Haris and Rasema Svraka were hoping to take advantage of when they set out three years ago to find a home that boasted a family-friendly neighborhood, good schools for their children and an easy commute to their jobs in South King County.

“I just felt like the money they were asking for the houses wasn’t worth it,” said Haris Svraka, a fueling supervisor at Sea-Tac Airport. “I was patiently waiting.” And that wait paid off.

Last May, the couple snagged a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Des Moines for $228,000. The one-story, 1,500-square-foot home was built in 1964.

“The best deal at the time was in Des Moines,” Haris Svraka said. “It was a foreclosed house. … A great neighborhood. It’s nice and quiet.”

Although Troncoso’s new 2,600-square-foot home was priced slightly more than the Auburn area’s median home price, it boasted everything he wanted: plenty of room, walking distance to his children’s schools and a short drive to the Sounder train station.

The home also features several construction upgrades, such as premium appliances and hardwood floors, that he hopes will help the property hold its value.

“It was a great school system, a great neighborhood, and the commute was a lot easier,” he said.

“I wish I would have held off a little longer. But I still believe I made a good decision.”

Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

More Real Estate headlines…

Seattle Real Estate Tyler Freed

This is a great article from YAHOO News, with input from the Washington Center of Real Estate Research.

Home sales in Washington state rise in 3rd quarter
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press Writer Nicholas K. Geranios, Associated Press Writer
Wed Nov 11, 8:12 am ET

SPOKANE, Wash. – The number of existing homes sold in Washington state increased in the third quarter compared with the previous three months, the Washington Center for Real Estate Research reported Tuesday.

The federal first-time homebuyer tax credit helped sales increase 15.6 percent, according to the center at Washington State University. Sales also were 2.6 percent higher than a year ago, the center said.

It was the first year-to-year improvement in sales since the fourth quarter of 2005.

But the median home price during the July-September period was $260,000, which was 7.6 percent less than a year ago.

“It must be noted that this represents a continued slowing in the rate of decline in prices,” said center director Glenn Crellin.

The median price was also held lower because the most active segment of the market was first-time buyers seeking the most affordable homes, he said.

A special study by the center found that about half the home sales in the state during the April-June quarter were to buyers claiming the tax credit, Crellin said. Last week’s decision to extend the federal program should help the housing recovery, he said.

Median prices ranged from a high of $515,000 in San Juan County to a low of $125,000 in Adams County.

There were just over 49,000 homes listed for sale with multiple listing services at the end of September, 14.3 percent fewer than a year ago. This was the smallest September inventory since 2006.

While median prices declined, mortgage interest rates increased during the quarter, leaving affordability basically unchanged. The housing affordability index statewide stood at 122.8, meaning the median income family had 22.8 percent more income than the minimum required to qualify to purchase a median price home with a 20 percent down payment and a 30-year mortgage.

WCRER has produced home sales statistics in partnership with Washington Realtors since 1994.

Seattle Real Estate Tyler Freed

Washington State Real Estate Outlook

The Washington state real estate market, just like the market in the rest of the country, is starting to rally. But prices on average statewide are still down from last year, even though this time last year the market had already fallen hard. Washington state, bordered with Idaho on the east, Oregon on to the south, Canada on the north and the Pacific Ocean on its west coast can be a good place to make a real estate investment, however, if you’re willing to think of it as a long-term investment.

Right now, Washington state home sales are up almost 16% from last year, which is good news. But the median price has dropped almost 8%. Since June, sales have been boosted by a tax credit that most experts believed believe is responsible for the surge in sales, and that without the credit, at least half of the sales wouldn’t have been possible.

Though residential real estate is down 5% in King County, it is up 12% in the last five years and up 58% from the last ten years. The increase in sales and decrease in price are median numbers in Washington state real estate, however. Some areas have shown an increase in the sale prices of homes, like in Skamania County where home prices are up an average of almost 7% and Columbia County where the average home selling price is up a whopping 25% over this time last year.

Another good indicator of the Washington state real estate market is the number of building permits applied for as compared to this time last year. This will show the trend over the coming months as the new constructions are completed. Columbia county, where home sale prices have gone up 25%, has only half the building permits applied for as last year. And since new construction is slow and few are building, the home prices there could continue to stay above last’s year’s numbers. The number of sales is also up 25% over last year.

Thurston county, the home of the capital city, Olympia, only had about a 3% increase in median home selling prices, but had a whopping difference in the number of building permit applications. Almost 50% more permits have been applied for by the end of the third quarter of 2009 than in 2008. It’s hard to predict the trends when you have a tri-cities area like Kennewick, Richland and Pasco in Benton and Franklin counties, which are usually grouped together in Washington state real estate circles, with each city showing drastically different numbers.

Benton county has had about 25% fewer sales than this time last year, with a small 13% decrease in permits, but the price has stayed fairly steady, with only a 0.3% increase. Neighboring Franklin county, however, shows about the same numbers, except in new permit applications which are up 45% over last year.

If you plan to invest in Washington state real estate, it’s important that you look at the purchase as a longer-term investment and not something that you’ll try to flip quickly while the market’s still erratic. If you want to purchase a residence in Washington, looking at the numbers in the area you’d like to live can help you get in with an investment that will improve over time.

About the Author:

For more information about the current market or how to take advantage of today’s market visit http://www.tylerfreed.com.

Seattle Real Estate Tyler Freed

I came across this article awhile back and wanted to include this on the webpage.
C.R. ROBERTS; The News Tribune
More home sales closed in Pierce County in July than in any month since August 2007.
Nearly 21 percent more sales – of single-family homes and condominiums – were pending than were pending a year ago.

“I’m a happy camper at the moment,” said Windermere Real Estate broker and Northwest Multiple Listing Service director Dick Beeson on Wednesday.

“It’s good news on a lot of levels,” he said.

Northwest Multiple Listing Service on Wednesday released its monthly data snapshot of residential real estate activity in the state.

In Pierce County in July, 903 sales were closed – compared with 747 in June and 796 in July 2008. Not since August 2007, when 1,120 deals were closed, have so many transactions been completed.

MLS also reported that 1,251 sales were pending in Pierce County in July, compared with 1,036 a year before.

The median sales price for closed sales was $228,500, compared with $255,000 in July 2008. Median means half of the homes sold were priced above and half were priced below.

In Thurston County in July, 284 sales closed, compared with 322 in July 2008. Statewide, 5,527 sales closed in July – against 5,271 a year before.

“It tells me, number one, that buyers are getting smarter, they’re taking action, they’re getting off the fence,” Beeson said. “Number two, the median price has stabilized. We’ve literally stayed the same. With buyer demand going up, and inventory going down, we’re getting back to a near-normal market.”

The median home price in Pierce County in June was $230,000.

Theresa Bastian, a Tacoma Realtor and principal at Keller Williams, said Wednesday, “I’m cautiously optimistic. I think we’re seeing several things going on in the market right now.”

Bastian noted that her office is seeing bank-owned properties “being aggressively priced. People are falling in love with a good deal. Yes, it’s a wonderful time to be a first-time buyer, but this isn’t helping the move-up buyers. It’s not helping people sell their homes and move up.”

A major part of the apparent rebound comes from activity in the lower tier of homes for sale, Beeson said.

“What’s being sold is mainly $250,000 or less,” he said. “It’s a strong market. I’d say that the higher end, $450,000 and up, and the midrange, $300,000 to $400,000, are still twelve months away. There will be sales made, but I think it’s still soft.”

He noted that there are 489 homes for sale in Pierce County priced at $750,000 and above.

“We still see a lot of activity in the lower end,” said Bastian. “Which is wonderful – it’s better than no activity.”

She said she had seen other data – which calculate active listings in relation to pending sales – that indicate a property’s likelihood of selling. These data show a home in the Gig Harbor area, placed on the market, had a 13.2 percent chance of selling earlier this summer. A home in the southeast of Tacoma had a 37.8 percent chance, and in Spanaway a 32.1 percent chance.

The number of closed sales of condominiums in Pierce County in July stood at 65, according to MLS, compared with 116 a year before. The median price of a condominium, $196,990, was down 9 percent from $216,475 in July 2008.

C.R. Roberts: 253-597-8535

c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com

We are seeing the same thing happen in Bonney Lake and Lake Tapps. The lower end homes are moving a lot quicker then the higher end. Definitely due to financing regulations and lack of equity in upper end homes.

Seattle Real Estate Tyler Freed