Seattle weekly: early indications are buyers are more active

Early indications are that buyers are much more active in January than they were in December. In chatting with other agents today, open houses were busy, and more than a few listings are expecting multiple offers. It helps that mortgage rates are approaching a four-month low. So for buyers who were actively looking at houses and writing offers in the fall, the January market is going to require a mindset shift. For instance, a home our client was looking at in December would have gladly accepted nearly any offer in December, but this weekend they had multiple offers even though they’ve been on the market for over 40 days and they’re now holding pretty firm on price and contingencies.

In terms of the numbers, we saw 142 new listings in Seattle last week, making it the busiest week in seven weeks for new listings. We should see even more new listings this week even though we have a long weekend coming up. As for buyers, they put just 65 homes under contract last week. Though the week to really watch for that number is this week.

Of those new listings, some caught our eye. Like this $6m waterfront NW contemporary on Yarrow Bay or this funky Eastlake floating home. Don’t miss this $3m Wendell Lovett home from the 80s or here’s a ready-to-build place in West Seattle (must love concrete!). Fans of lofts, don’t miss our new listing in West Seattle. Designed by Pb Elemental, it is way cooler than a new townhome.

If you’ve been thinking of buying a new condo – at Spire, they just cut prices, for one unit nearly $150k. Koda too has cut prices.

Our first home-buying class of the year will be on February 7th, or just hit reply if you want to grab a coffee and chat one-on-one.