Photo: Diana Parkhouse
A whole bunch of people came out this week saying roughly the same thing. Housing values and prices in Washington and around the nation are up, up, up.
First, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service announced Wednesday that there were 75,517 house sales in Washington in 2013, up 17% and 11K transactions from 2012.
Putting aside new developments, over 5M existing homes were sold in 2013, which made it the best year since 2006. The national median price for existing homes also rose 11.5% in 2013 to around $197K.
It all sounds good but Zillow warns that things should slow down in 2014:
National appreciation rates are expected to slow considerably in 2014. Nationwide, home values are expected to rise another 4.8 percent through December 2014, according to the Zillow Home Value Forecast. But local market conditions will not necessarily follow national conditions, a trend that may cause confusion and uncertainty among home buyers and sellers. Zillow expects all but one of the nation's 35 largest metro areas (St. Louis, -3.1 percent) to show appreciation this year, but the expected annual appreciation rates vary from 16.1 percent in Riverside, Calif., to just 0.4 percent in Kansas City. None will approach the often breakneck pace set in 2013.
According to Zillow, Seattle is due for 5-10% home value appreciation. Do you agree? Share your thoughts in the comments below…
· Value of homes sold rises nearly to 2007 level: report [PSBJ]
· Existing-home sales top 5 million in 2013 -- best year since 2006 [PSBJ]
· Q4 Ends 2013 on High Note, 'Mixed Bag' Expected for 2014 [Zillow]
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