August 2020 NWMLS Activity

The Puget Sound real estate market is breaking records! With the lowest number of homes for sale in more than 20 years combined with the lowest mortgage rates on record, it feels like a multiple-offer everything. Buyers are competing for the reduced number of homes on the market in a feverish pace causing some crazy price gains for single family homes.

Sellers are certainly in the driver’s seat as we saw brokers add 11,943 new listings to inventory in August, down from July when they added 12,514 homes and condos but up from the 10,488 properties listed during the same month a year ago…though total listings at month’s end was 9,591 (down almost 43 percent from the same time last year) because pending sales of 13,224 (up nearly 25 percent from a year ago) depleted more than what was added. In the four-county Puget Sound region (King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties), brokers reported 9,179 pending sales; breaking the record set in May of 2017 (9,188) when looking back as far as January of 2002. In the 23 counties served by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS), there is less than one month’s inventory (0.97 months).

Median prices are up in the double digits in many areas; some with crazy gains. System-wide, for last month’s closed sales of 9,847 units (up more than 4.8 percent from a year ago and the highest since June of 2018), prices increased nearly 14 percent from the same time last year. In fact, since January alone, prices have increased 15.9 percent in just those 8 months this year. In the four-county Puget Sound region, prices were up 17 percent; rising from $500,000 to $585,000. San Juan County came in the highest at 43.6 percent, followed by Jefferson County at 27.9 percent and Island County at 22 percent.

Buyers are taking out all the stops when competing to outbid other buyers (for example: removing the inspection contingency, waiving financing, offering to pay more than the home is worth, making up the difference of a low appraisal with cash, etc.). Let Hewitt Property Group counsel you on your best strategy to win when either buying and/or selling in the current environment; you’ll be glad you did!