7-12-10: The inventory of homes on the market has crept up across the board -- single-family, condo, low end, high end -- as summer sets in. Here are the 7-week absorption pages for King County in single-family and in condo (see below for "primer" on how to use these.) Also very good Trendgraphix charts.

 

6-22-10:      Oh my, how the supply of buyers dropped off when the tax credit deadline passed at the end of April! See the weekly count of "pendings" updated to 6-16-10. ... 5-5-10: Detailed article in Seattle Times shows the tax credit deadline absorbed buyers, leaving a market dip afterward (in May). Click here.

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Primer for the 7-week absorption pages cited above: 

 

These are amazing tools. They break it down to narrow price ranges in all sorts of neighborhoods. But they take a little bit of familiarityfirst. Here's a brief primer:

 

Open the Single-Family one and scroll on the left to Area 390 as an example (that's the Ship Canal to I-90). This covers the past 7 weeks. Start on the right, at the 7-week average. Pick the "$400,000 to $500,000" horizontal row. An average of 5 homes sold per week for the past 7 weeks in that price range in Area 390. That's about 20 per month. And an average of 54 homes were on the market during those seven weeks in that price range in Area 390. So it takes 2.5 months for that average inventory to sell right now. That equates to a somewhat brisk pace, a "sellers market" in that price category. (Anything less than 3 months is a sellers market (good time to list your home for sale). 3 to 6 months = ballanced market, and more than 6 months = buyers market = good time to be buying.) Everything above $800k in Area 390 right now is "buyers market."

 

If you want to know more, email me at joenabb@windermere.com or call.