Condos in July: Prices Up a Bit, Sales Down 30%
This afternoon Redfin released new data on the Seattle Area market showing that for the city of Seattle condo prices increased 1.8% in July to $290,000, and were flat year-over-year. Sales volume decreased 29.4% to 161 sales from June to July, and decreased 23.7% year-over-year (there were 211 condos sold June 2009).
Inventory Down 4.5% Month over Month
In July the number of condos for sale in Seattle decreased 4.5% to 1,373 from 1,437 in June but up 1.6% year-over-year.
Here’s the number of condos for sale in July by neighborhood.
| # For Sale July ’10 | Mo/Mo Change | # For Sale July ’09 | Yr/Yr Change | |
| Ballard | 49 | -29.0% | 62 | -21.0% |
| Belltown | 168 | 1.2% | 172 | -2.3% |
| Capitol Hill | 170 | -3.4% | 165 | 3.0% |
| Central District | 49 | 8.9% | 19 | 157.9% |
| Downtown | 399 | -2.0% | 405 | -1.5% |
| Fremont | 24 | 4.3% | 18 | 33.3% |
| Queen Anne | 148 | -17.8% | 152 | -2.6% |
| South Lake Union | 23 | -8.0% | 17 | 35.5% |
| West Seattle | 142 | -0.7% | 131 | 8.4% |
Sales Volume Down 29.4% Month over Month
When we reported on June sales they had declined 18% month-over-month, and again this past month they’ve declined again. This time 29.4% month-over-month. Welcome to a post-tax credit world. This certainly surpassed our predictions as last month we predicted “sales will be flat to slightly down.” I said this last month, but this month, I mean it, I don’t think we’ll see such a big drop off for another month in a row.
Here’s the # of condos bought in July 2010 by neighborhood. Instead of showing the month-over-month increase which is skewed by the number of weekdays in a month we’re showing the weekday rate of change for a better comparison in sales volume:
| # Sold July ’10 | Mo/Mo Weekday Rate Change | # Sold July ’09 | Yr/Yr Change | |
| Ballard | 4 | -58.3% | 18 | -72.2% |
| Belltown | 22 | -21.4% | 20 | 10.0% |
| Capitol Hill | 20 | -23.1% | 34 | -41.2% |
| Central District | 4 | – | 8 | – |
| Downtown | 47 | -24.2 | 47 | 0.0% |
| Fremont | 5 | -28.6 | 4 | – |
| Queen Anne | 20 | 0.0% | 22 | -9.1% |
| South Lake Union | 4 | – | 3 | – |
| West Seattle | 15 | -28.6% | 18 | -16.7% |
Median Prices Increase 1.8% to $290,000
Surprisingly with sales volume really decreasing the median price increased slightly to $290,000.
| July ’10 | Mo/Mo Change | July ’09 | Yr/Yr Change | $/Sq. Ft. | |
| Ballard | $449,950 | 45.2% | $287,500 | 56.5% | $402 |
| Belltown | $378,750 | 0.5% | $424,500 | -10.8% | $439 |
| Capitol Hill | $310,975 | 6.6% | $311,900 | -0.3% | $329 |
| Central District | – | – | $215,600 | – | – |
| Downtown | $375,000 | 9.2% | $405,000 | -7.4% | $411 |
| Fremont | $239,950 | -2.1% | – | – | $254 |
| Queen Anne | $337,500 | 23.9% | $259,500 | 30.1% | $348 |
| South Lake Union | – | – | – | – | – |
| West Seattle | $219,000 | 6.8% | $230,000 | -4.8% | $249 |
For more color on sales in July check out our weekly series of recent sale posts.
What Does the Future Hold?
I suspect we’ll see sales activity be flat to slightly down in August, and inventory will be down as everyone heads out on vacation in August.
What Do You Think?
Have you been shopping for a condo recently? What do you think of what’s available for sale? Made any offers? How did those go?
Redfin has a spreadsheet available if you want to dig into the data for for a neighborhood or city not included here (or for single-family home and townhouse data.)
Disclaimer: I work at Redfin and run the marketing team. This is one of the projects I work on.
