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.
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I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. See you next month!