For the sixth month in a row, Seattle had more homes on the market, fewer sales and higher prices than the previous year, according to new statistics for December.
But the median house price of $420,000 was down from the previous month for the third time in the past five months, bringing it back to July’s level, according to numbers the Northwest Multiple Listing Service released Jan. 5. Fitting a typical seasonal trend, the number of homes on the market declined nearly 30 percent from November to December.
“It’s more of the same,” said Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University. “My expectation is that we’re moving into a period where sales are going to remain strong but certainly not as strong as they had been, and where prices are going to be moderating and stabilizing.”
Prices on comparable homes, particularly in higher ranges, are going down, but people are taking advantage of that to buy more than they could have otherwise, Crellin said.
Michael Simonsen, chief executive of Altos Research, in Palo Alto, Calif., has noticed cooling in the Seattle home market.
“Any comparison with last year is down in terms of demand and numbers of sales,” he said. “Not great but certainly not falling through the floor.”
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Median prices have not dropped with the changes because only the good houses are selling, Simonsen said. “The lousier properties, they’re either going off the market or they’re just sitting around for a long time.”
Bob Melvey, assistant manager at Windermere Real Estate’s Ballard office, said he is always “a little suspect” of median home prices because they do not really show whether the value of any given house has gone up or down. But he noted one Olympic Manor home that sold in December 2005 for $541,900 and again in November 2006 for $600,000.
Subtracting $5,000 in value Melvey estimated for renovations to the house, that’s an increase of 9.8 percent in 11 months.
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that all homes in Seattle are going up by that amount,” he said.
Melvey’s own analysis of the number of sales versus the number of homes listed shows Seattle is still a seller’s market.”It certainly seems to me that the market is still really healthy,”he said.