The Northwest Multiple Listing Service released data for September on Wednesday and it continues to be a case of good news/bad news for homebuyers. The good news is that the rocketing rate at which home prices had been rising seems to have slowed down. The bad news is that it hasn’t exactly stopping rising, though.
In King County, there were 3,699 active listings in September, up 8.2 percent from August. Sales, however, were down 9.8 percent over the same time period to 2,517.
The median home price across the country hit $538,000, down 2.2 percent from August but still up 9.7 percent from September 2015. In Seattle, the average house will run you $630,000, which is up 10.3 percent from last year. Eastside median prices are also down to $750,000 from the previous highs of the spring.
Don’t look to condos for relief. The median Seattle condo ran you $475,000, a new record and a number that is up 31 percent from September 2015.
So all in all, a mixed bag for buyers and sellers trying to time whether or not this is the right time for them. The fall slowdown could be temporary or it could be the beginning of a protracted cooldown.
The region is also keeping a close eye on how the changes in Vancouver will affect Seattle-area home prices. We may already be seeing those effects in West Bellevue, which is popular with Chinese buyers, and saw it’s median price rise in August, though it did settle down a bit in September. It’s still north of $2M.
Mike Rosenberg at the Seattle Times dug down to the neighborhoods to see just how much housing prices have changed. He found that Queen Anne/Magnolia leads the way with a 33 percent price hike over the year. That’s followed by the Seward Park area (28 percent) and SoDo/Beacon Hill (25 percent).