Greater Seattle Real Estate Trends for May, 2016
Home prices have held steady over the past couple months in Seattle, while the median price of single family homes has increased 4.9% King County wide since February.
Sales of Seattle single family homes tallied 724 sales in April with a median selling price of $624,088, which represents a 15.7% increase compared to April of 2015. The volume of closed sales lagged behind last year, making April the third out of the last four months and fifth time in the last seven months that has happened.
Inventory remains a struggle, as the amount of active listings has fallen 6.1% compared to last year. To help put things in perspective, the 611 active single family homes for sale in Seattle, as of May 1st, is a mere 30% of the 2,055 active listings buyers had to choose from back in May of 2011.
Closed sales did rise 17.7% month over month, but home prices in Seattle have held steady after hitting a post-recession peak median selling price of $625,000 in February.
Looking at King County as a whole, April’s $540,000 median selling price of single family homes was a 12.5% year over year increase and a 6.3% increase since the end of last year.
Home sales have also steadied in King County, with April coming in as the fourth straight month where sales lagged behind last year’s volume. Year to date, home sales are down 6.4% compared to last year.
Here’s an interesting tidbit… of the 2,114 residential sales (excludes condos) in King County in April, 11.2% (236) of those fetched a million dollars or more. Last month there were 12 sales at three million or more, with the highest sale being a pre-construction home in Clyde Hill that sold for $4.6 million.
