Jan. 6, 2008 - Kirkland Real Estate Stats as of today
Over on Rain City Guide I posted the stats for King County. With so many people tracking the real estate market to see where the market is headed in 2008, I'll be posting stats for King County at RCG on Sunday nights and do a different City each week over here.
The housing stats become much more meaningful when you break them down into the City and price range you are buying or selling in.
For Example, let's look at Kirkland all together both single family and condos in all price ranges.
The orange portion represents the 1,604 properties sold in Kirkland in 2007. If you divide the number sold by 12, you get an average of 133.66 sold in a month. If you divide the number of homes for sale of 616 by 113.66, you see that there is a 4.6 month supply on market.
That would be a moderate buyers market. BUT if you are looking to buy a condo for over a million dollars, you would be in a very strong buyer's market as shown below in the graph for condos over a million dollars. As you can see, the green portion of the pie is more than the orange portion, meaning the number currently for sale exceeds the number sold in the entire year of 2007. Much more bargaining power if the seller needs to sell and sellers should not be overpricing their homes given this absorption rate of current inventory of over a year.
The median price for all condos sold in Kirkland in 2008 was $329,000. The median price for all condos for sale right now is $415,000. So if property is not selling, it could simply be because sellers are asking to much as a whole and you should be very careful to make sure you are buying the few that are priced well.
If you look at the state of the condo market for sale at that median price of $329,000 or less, the outlook is completely different and it is not a strong buyer's market. But it's not a seller's market either. If you are looking to buy a condo for under $250,000, the odds that the seller will need to negotiate strongly are less than if you are buying one for $650,000.
81 condos in this price range is about a 2.8 month supply if you do the math as shown above.
SINGLE FAMILY HOMES IN KIRKLAND
Let's jump to single family homes and look at the strong buyer's market for homes priced over $1.5M. Not quite as bad as sellers of condos priced over a million dollars, but still a strong buyers market for homes priced over $1.5 million.
The median price range for all single famil homes sold in Kirkland in 2007 was $590,000 and the median price of all single family homes for sale today is $799,000. Again, the high inventory can be at least partially blamed onthe fact that sellers are pricing too high and higher than the comps from previous sold property. So be very careful to only consider the few that are priced well.
Not a strong buyers or sellers market for the homes priced at the median sold price of $590,000 or less though. Condition and Location are the most important factors in this group as to whether or not the asking price is a good value.
I'll try to do stats every Sunday and pick a different City or Zip Code each week. Next week I'll do Bellevue and highlight 98005 and 98007 unless someone has a special request for another area.
Jan. 2, 2008 - 2008 Opening Inventory Bellevue Real Estate
Playing with my avatar there. Have to get some inventory and in escrow numbers up this first day of 2008. I'm just posting raw data here by zip code to retrieve later.
Bellevue, Washington
90004 - Residential: For Sale 132, in escrow 26 Condo: for sale 133, in escrow 31
98005 - Residential: For Sale 54, in escrow 10 Condo: for sale 29, in escrow 6
98006 - Residential For Sale 157, in escrow 21 Condo for sale 32, in escrow 3
98007 - Residential For Sale 35, in escrow 5 Condo for sale 31, in escrow 12
98008 - Residential For Sale 87, in escrow 17 condo for sale 11, in escrow 12
Just in passing, it seems to me that 20% Seattle Home Sales happen in the first quarter of the year. I'll check that again after all the stats are posted.
One of the benefits of posting all of this data is that if that 20% holds true for 2005, 2006 and 2007, then we may be able to determine from the first quarter of 2008 whether the trend is up or down 2007 to 2008.
I'm skipping the pie charts, as I don't find them valuable without inventory and in escrow stats. I'll bring them back as we do 2007 in it's entirety and throughout 2008. The benefit of the pie is for absorption rates, so you can project based on which months are in front of us, and their historical significance to annual sales, how many months of supply are on hand.
So far I'm seeing 20% or so of real estate sells in the first quarter of the year, 28% in the second and third quarters (each - that's 57% combined) and 23% in the last quarter. Of course we want to see 2005, 2006 AND 2007 before picking out barometers for measuring 2008 as it unfolds. I know that doesn't quite "add up" but carrying the fractions actually puts the last quarter at 22-23% of a year's sales.
I'm throwing in this one pie chart because I think it's curious that the condo sales picked up so strongly at the end of the year, and this may become meaningful later. Since I'm seeing condo sales staying stronger as Single Family Home Sales weaken at almost three times the rate as condo sales, predicting the two markets separately in 2008 will likele be necessary to be more accurate.
The purpose of these charts is to try to predict the market for 2008 as we compile the numbers on a month to month basis by comparing YOY Home Sales for Seattle King County.
These percentages are needed so that we are not treating each month as if it represents 1/12 of all sales for the year. Perhaps an average of 2005 and 2006 and 2007? Not sure yet, and I will be posting 2006 and 2007 stats as well. So many more graphs and charts to come.
Looking at the graphs below, you might think this unnecessary given the percentages are not dramatically different. But something tells me that changed in the two subsequent years, particularly in 2007. So having this historical data will come in handy much later in the process of comparing data.
Apologies to those who may be bored with all of these stats, but 2008 is "anybody's guess" at the moment. So in order to base 2008 commentary on best guess vs. WAGuess, having these stats to refer to as 2008 plays out will be helpful to many, including me.
These are the last real stats for 2005 when you add these to the last two posts, but before moving into 2006 stats, I'll have one last set for 2005 after these.
Given 2005 sales were markedly higher than 2007 sales, but moreso for single family homes than condos, it's necessary that we track these markets separately.
ARDELL
DellaLoggia
On Seattle Real Estate including Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond, Green Lake and most areas around Lake Washington North of Downtown Seattle.
Phone: 206-910-1000 - Mailto:Ardell@RainCityGuide.com
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