Doron's Vlog

Hi, I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Welcome to my August 2023 Market Update report. How is a seller to know what to think during this murky period of real estate? On the one hand, inventory is down, which means buyers have fewer choices. That means it should be easier to sell. But on the other hand, higher interest rates and other uncertainties seem to make buyers pickier and to resist getting into huge bidding wars. The result, even with our lower inventory, is that new listings and sales remain sluggish. While median prices have meandered down in July 2023 relative to June 2023, it remains to be seen whether this is a trend, or just the normal, seasonal market fluctuation, affected by the higher interest rates, vacation time, people having fun in the sun, etc. Most likely, it’s a combination of all of the above. The good news, if you want to sell, is that there is a pathway that leads to a great outcome, namely: selling faster and selling for more money. Consider this graph: What I’m showing here is the final sale price as a percentage of the original asking price. Meaning, if your listing price was a million dollars, and you got a million dollars, then you are 100%. If you got more than a million dollars then you’re more than 100%. And, of course, if you got less than a million dollars, then you are below 100%. Make sense? From the summer of 2022 through March of 2023 – about nine months – sellers in Seattle and King County sold their homes for less than their asking prices, sometimes by as much as 5% less. In our area, with median home prices in the $800k range, 5% can be $40,000 – that’s a LOT of money, and that’s just for the median price! But then, starting in March of this year, sellers starter receiving at least their asking price. You can see this trend in the graph, where the line was below 100% for months, but is now consistently holding steady right on or above the asking price. And this is true even for July 2023, even though overall median prices dropped relative to June 2023. By the way, if you want to look at all this information and read my report at your pace and leisure, you’ll find all this information in my August newsletter, available online and for download, for free, at Weisbarth.com/Newsletter, that’s Weisbarth.com/Newsletter. What does all this mean? First, the market has stabilized. That’s good news and it is a big deal. Second, despite it being a strong sellers’ market, which it still very much is, if you want to maximize the sale of your home, the fundamentals of marketing are still very important. Things such as: Preparing and presenting your home in an appealing way Pricing the home correctly Understanding the buyers’ psychology Knowing where and how to reach those buyers Deal negotiations and so on. All these things matter a lot. In fact, none of these steps can be skipped, or you risk getting results that you may not like, such as taking longer to sell and selling your home for less than what it’s really worth. The other thing, if you want to maximize your home sale, is that you just can’t take the buyer’s for granted anymore. Just a few short years ago buyers would pretty much jump on anything that the market presented to them, and throw money at it, sometime without enough thought. Well, no longer! Buyers today are picky. And who can blame them? If you’re going to pay so much money for a home, and have a large monthly mortgage payment because of the higher interest rates, you’d be picky too! Fair? I think so. So, if you or anyone you know is looking to buy a home or sell their home, please refer them to the Weisbarth & Associates team by phone, email or fill out a form on our website. Our team will make sure that you are educated and prepared correctly. And when you refer someone, tell them that just because we meet and talk doesn’t mean that they are obligated to work with us – there’s absolutely NO obligation! To be honest, all of our clients work with us not out of any sense of obligation, but because they think that we’re the best suited to represent them on their home purchase or home sale, truly! The best way to reach me is by phone at 206-779-9808, that’s 206-779-9808. And remember that your business and referrals help the kids at Childhaven, so you get a good deed out of it too! Please remember to like, subscribe and follow for more great insights, charts and tips on my monthly vlog, and read our monthly newsletter at Weisbarth.com/Newsletter. I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Have a great rest of your summer and I’ll see you next month!

Hi, I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Welcome to my June 2023 Seattle Real Estate Market report. A year ago, I presented data showing just how far beyond the norm home sale prices were during 2021 and the beginning of 2022. I refer to this period of price aberration as the ‘Covid Price Spike’. This month, I’ll show you a similar graph, updated with another year’s worth of data, that is even more telling about what is going on in our Seattle area real estate market. Before I do that, I have to share with you a headline from the Seattle Time from June 5th. Really, Seattle Times? Really? Talk about attention grabbing headlines. This headline makes it sound like the sky is falling, when nothing could be further from the truth! Let’s look at some real data, shall we? The rising graph shows the median sale prices for single family homes (SFH) in King County going all the way back to January 2013. I used ORANGE to represent the portion of the dataset through December 2020, and BLUE to represent the portion of the dataset starting in January 2021 to the present. And by the way, these trends that I’m showing you are true for Snohomish County and Pierce County, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other counties in Washington as well. This next paragraph is a bit technical, so hang in there with me… I added to this graph two straight lines. The DOTTED ORANGE LINE represents the straight-line appreciation calculated using only the portion of the dataset from January 2013 to December 2020, and then extrapolated through May 2023. The DOTTED BLUE LINE represents the straight-line appreciation, calculated using the entire dataset, starting in January 2013, and all the way through May 2023. What these two straight lines represent are the rate at which single family homes appreciated in King County in the last 10 plus year. As you can clearly see, even with the large price increases during the ‘Covid Price Spike’, these two lines are very close to each other. What does all this mean? It means that despite the ‘Covid Price Spike’, the market seems to gravitate back to those straight-line appreciation rates. By the way, if you want to look at all this information and read my report at your pace and leisure, you’ll find all this information in my June newsletter . Incidentally, a similar price spike happened in 2017 and early 2018, although those spikes were not quite as pronounced. Although at the time, almost everyone thought that the end of the world was coming. So this kind of fearmongering is not new business. In the end, in all of these cases, the market eventually corrected itself back to the line. Again, I want to point out that these trends are true for Snohomish and Pierce counties, as other counties as well. So what we’re seeing now is the median home prices rising, although not quite as dramatically as they did last year. All this brings us back to the fundamental truths about real estate, that home prices are determined by two forces: supply and demand ! As long as the supply is low (which it is) and the demand is high (which it also is), then prices will continue to rise. Sometimes they will rise too fast, and then they will drop; sometimes they will be above the line, and sometimes below the lin. But these periods are generally short lived, as the market corrects itself very quickly. So don’t let misleading headlines confuse and scare you. As the old saying goes – numbers don’t lie! The market is very much alive and well. And when you understand the dynamics of all these market forces, you can make better decisions about buying and selling. Now if you know anyone who is considering buying or selling their home this year, please send them this video or refer them to us by phone, text, email or fill out the ‘referral’ form on our website . My team and I will make sure that they get educated on the buying and selling process, the things to do and not do, and, of course, on the market itself, so that they can make the best decisions and maximize their results. There is no cost for any of this and absolutely no obligation. The best way to reach me is by phone at 206-779-9808. Please remember to like, subscribe and follow for more great insights, charts and tips on my monthly vlog , and read our monthly newsletter . I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. See you next month!

Hi, I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Welcome to my May 2023 Market Update report. The spring real estate rush is on! And so far it’s looking great – especially for sellers, but also for buyers. Despite the crazy weather, it is much closer to a normal spring sale than, perhaps, you have been led to believe. It’s easy these days to get caught up in the media’s narrative about real estate. But they tend to overlook the basic data in search of an attention-grabbing headline. As I had stated in past newsletters and vlogs , a year-over-year analysis, which is, pretty much, the only type of analysis you’ll find in the media, is inherently flawed, if one of the years considered in the analysis is abnormal – that makes sense, right? Well, guess what, the first quarter of last year, 2022, when the market was red-hot and out of control, was super abnormal. So any comparison to that time is going to give you the wrong picture of the real market right now. What makes more sense? Let’s look at the numbers since the beginning of this year, 2023. Here are the numbers for single family homes (SFH) in King County, comparing January 2023 to April 2023: Median sales prices are up 9.3% since January 2023, from $799,900 to $875,000 – nothing gloomy about that for sellers. New listings are up 6.7%. This is a smaller increase than you might expect, as sellers still seem a bit hesitant, and listings are still lower than pre-pandemic. But buyers are out there looking, and homes are selling fast. How fast? I’m glad you asked! The median number of days a home sits on the market for sale until it gets in offer has plummeted over 80%, from 34 days in January down to just 6 days in April. That’s fast! If you want to sell right now, you will likely sell very quickly, and get a good price on top of that! Closed sales nearly doubled from 793 homes in January to 1,443 homes in April, an 82% spike. And pending sales, meaning homes that receive an offer but the sale had not yet closed, are up 48.5% from January 2023 to April 2023. By the way, if you want to look at all this information and read my report at your pace and leisure, you’ll find all this information in my May newsletter . So the spring sale is definitely starting off on the right foot. Median prices, new listings, and closed sales are all decidedly up, and the time it takes to sell is dramatically down. These are classic seller’s market attributes. Next month we’ll have another data set that will be able to tell us if these trends are continuing, and if so, how strongly. In the meantime, make sure you take all the media reports with a HUGE grain of salt. Now, if you or someone you know is looking to sell a home, or buy a home – big decisions, no doubt, please refer them to us so that we can properly educate and guide them, so that they can get the most from their transaction. My team and I offer a free, no-obligation consultation. Which means that we’ll be happy to sit down with anyone who needs help, then combine our wealth of knowledge, experience and knowhow, to put together a plan and strategy for maximizing your results. Please call me directly at 206-779-9808, or send me a message through this site or send me a safe, secure, and confidential message through my website, at Weisbarth.com/refer. Thanks for watching this video. If you find this information useful and helpful, please share it with others. Please remember to like, subscribe and follow for more great insights, charts and tips on my monthly vlog, and read our monthly newsletter . I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. See you next month!