Usually real estate brokers expect – and welcome – a slowdown in sales activity during the late fall and early winter season. It begins the week before Thanksgiving, lingering until after the Super Bowl in February when the market begins to really kick to life again. Seattle seems to be a professional football town, even if their beloved Seahawks don’t make the post-season. It looks to me as if the typical slow down may not be noticeable this year. The November issue of NW REporter shows that inventory continues to be historically low and prices continue to escalate. In the Seattle Metropolitan Area, there are 33% fewer listings for sale October 2015 than there were October 2014, yet the number of pending sales is 8% higher than it was this same time last year. So we have a third less properties to sell and still the number of sales is up. It is no wonder that the median price of closed sales is up 10% over last year and the homes that are selling are taking 15% less market time to sell.
I took a peek at our neighborhood south of I-90 and found 85 properties actively for sale and 135 under contract, waiting to close. At this rate, we have about 1 month’s worth of inventory for sale. Anything less than 3 month’s worth of inventory for sale is considered to be a Seller’s market; you can see we are in an extreme Seller’s market! I expect the sales numbers would be higher if we just had more inventory. Sellers DO NOT need to wait until next spring to experience a quick sale for top dollar. It is looking like my “long winter’s nap” may be postponed.
Normal slowdown for the fall/winter/holiday season will be modest.
