The number of homes for sale in the greater Seattle area continued to decline through March 2012, with most of the Puget Sound area in “seller’s market” status based on the months of housing supply available by the end of the month. Pending sales for both houses and condos were also significantly higher than in March 2011, as the numbers at the bottom of this post demonstrate.
Here’s what the current market looks like compared to a year ago:
In the heat maps above the red areas show seller’s market status (0 to 3 months of housing inventory remaining), yellow is a balanced market (3 to 6 months), and green is a buyer’s market (over 6 months of inventory remaining.) I can’t remember ever seeing a map that was as red as the one for March 2012.
Here’s a summary of what the numbers look like:
[table id=492 /]
Clearly, inventory is significantly down and pending sales are up. In addition, we’re seeing the price of pending sales start to trend upwards – we’ll see in a month or so how directly that translates to a trend in closing prices.
The numbers above show averages of the medians for various MLS areas in Seattle and on the Eastside. If you’d like to delve more deeply into what’s happening in specific areas you can view this 2-page pdf I created based on the March 2012 Seattle area real estate stats, which breaks things down by neighborhoods.
