Seattle weekly wrap-up: second slowest week of the year for buyers
Hope you had a great fourth of July! We’re officially back in “the fire floating home” and hosted a big party with swimming, Pecos Pit, and popsicles. Of course, we’re feeling the pain that many of our clients go through with new construction as we dial in the details and work through the punch list. Good times!
It was a short week, but sellers were reasonably busy listing 330 new listings. On the other hand, buyers only put 135 homes under contract.
We expected a slowdown, but compared to previous years, this is the largest post-fourth of July slowdown we’ve seen. So we’re clearly going beyond the usual summer slowdown – buyers are likely distracted with travel and discouraged by rates (30-year fixed is at 5.84%, down from its 6.28% recent high).
The slow market is resulting in more promotions – Spire and Emerald are both running big promotions, Isola is offering a 4% credit, one developer is offering agents a 4% commission and many sellers are cutting prices.
On the blog, we dug into June’s numbers. For Seattle single-family homes, the median price is starting to fall and will fall more; Eastside pricing is falling faster though. Seattle condo prices are also down as buyer interest wanes. However, on the Eastside, condo prices are up. Want a deep dive on the market? Our next home buying class is Wednesday at 4 pm.
What caught our eye this past week was a midcentury in North Beach and a $21m 1967 Hunts Point waterfront estate. An end-of-dock floating home “teardown” also caught our eye but went pending in 30 hours! If you want to get to the mountains, here’s an a-frame ready to Airbnb.
P.S. beware of tsunamis
