Oct. 11, 2009 - Seattle Real Estate Stats - North Seattle Homes

I've been studying the stats over the last few days, preparing my thoughts regarding What will happen in the Seattle Area when the homebuyer credit expires? This is Part 1 of a series of where will we be when the credit expires based somewhat on where we might have been if there never was an $8,000 Homebuyer Credit.

Volume of homes sold in 3rd quarter 2009 is about the same as 1st quarter 2006 and 2nd quarter 2008. i have also done a lot of price graphs, but starting here with volume graphs.

This first graph tells you what IS as to North Seattle, that being north of Downtown. I use a Map Search feature that draws a line at the Seattle dot on the map, which is placed at Downtown Seattle. The results for North Seattle are significantly different than South as to volume and price changes. For the Eastside I will break it out by School District, which is the most relevant dividing factor for most "suburban" home values and activity.

At the end of last month I took North Seattle into "above and below" 85th, pointing out that the area from downtown to 85th was by far the highest performer. Once I finish North Seattle vs. South Seattle and Eastside by School District, I would like to visit the two segments of North Seattle again.

For now, let's look at some general observations and projections.

In the graph below, I speculate (green) where volume might have been without the $8,000 homebuyer credit. To guesstimate where the market will go when the credit expires, I'm using the 2008 relationship between quarters as a guide, though my final observations will be based both on price and volume...and not volume alone. When I called "bottom" at 1st quarter 2009 earlier this year on or about Feb 10, it was based somewhat on the then projected phenomenon of volume at 470 in the first quarter, which I state as "unprecented" for the  most part.

More on that as I post more data in subsequent posts, but you can clearly see how the 1st Quarter of 2009 volume of 470 was drastically impacted by the credit "coming" and not yet "here". It is my best guess that Volume might have been closer to 608 (as shown in the green bar), had the credit not been a factor at all.

(Required Disclosure: Statistics are not compiled, verified or posted by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.)