December, 2010, A Surprise in the Seattle Eastside Real Estate Market

How did Seattle’s eastside end its year in real estate? Surprising to some, there was a huge increase in the number of homes sold in some areas when compared to last year.  Pending sales for the year on the eastside were up by 10%. Only a few of the eastside neighborhoods had home sales which were down from last year.

Several theories were proposed in The Seattle Times wrap up on December real estate:

• The market finally has worked its way through the lull it fell into after the tax credits’ expiration.

• Buyers are climbing off the fence, even if they suspect prices will continue slipping, because they fear interest rates will rise and wipe out any savings.

• There may have been a push to get some long-languishing short sales — sales for less than sellers owe lenders — closed before year-end.

Is this a trend that will continue into the New Year?  It’s probably too early to say, but I’ll be watching over the next couple of months to see how 2011 real estate performs on the eastside.  Do you think this will be the start of a change in local area real estate?

The odds of selling a home on the Eastside in November ranged from 12% to 20%, with an average 16% absorption rate.*  Most home sellers on Seattle’s eastside had a 16/100 chance of selling their home last month.

*(The absorption rate is the number of homes for sale in any given month divided by the actual number of homes sold that month.  If the absorption rate is 10%, then 10 out of the 100 homes for sale sold that month.)

December, 2010      2499 homes for sale    397 homes sold             16% odds of selling.

November, 2010      2818 homes for sale    455 (was 485) homes sold       16%(was 17%)  odds of selling.*

December,  2009     2584 homes for sale   343 homes sold           13% odds of selling.

*(Some home sales fail because of the buyer financing or an inspection.  The number of sales is updated when we find out the actual number of homes that sold during that time.)

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December, 2009 Seattle-Eastside real estate market compared to December, 2010:

• The average  price of pending homes (recently sold homes) went from $536,205 to $513,009.
  
• On 12-27-10, there were 11,015 King County homes (houses and condos) for sale. There were approximately 4000 less homes for sale, 32% less, in King County now than in July.
  
• The number of homes sold on Seattle’s Eastside: down .7% from last year. The sales were almost the same as December, 2009.
  
• Number of homes for sale on Seattle’s Eastside: The number of homes for sale in December, 2010 was about 75 less than 2009.
• If you look at 2010, in 9 out of 12 months, 400-500 homes sold each month.  But the number of homes for sale varied from July’s high of 3400+ to December’s low of 2499.

Best odds of selling: East Bellevue/Redmond areas around Microsoft.

Worst odds of selling: West Bellevue and downtown Redmond and Carnation.

Biggest increase in sales from last year: East Bellevue/Redmond near Microsoft.

Smallest increase in sales from last year: Downtown Redmond and Carnation.

Decline in home sales from last year: Two out of the 7 Seattle-eastside areas had fewer sales, West Bellevue and Sammamish/Issaquah/North Bend/ Fall City.

The peak of homes for sale in 2008: July,  4370 homes.

The peak of homes for sale in 2009: June,  3859 homes.

The peak of homes for sale in 2010: August, 3492 homes.

The number of eastside homes for sale at the start of 2010: 2588 homes.

The number of eastside homes for sale in December, 2010: 2499 homes.