Seattle weekly wrap-up: beat the heat with a floating home
Sigh, another slow week for new listings when it should be much busier than it is!
Last week we saw 265 new listings in Seattle, down 10% week-over-week. The WSJ did a deep dive on this recently, The Home Buyer’s Quandary: Nobody’s Selling (sub. req’d). Basically, would-be home sellers don’t want to see their interest rate nearly double if they were to both sell and then buy. As of March 31st, nearly two-thirds of primary mortgages had an interest rate below 4%; mortgage rates as of today are 6.67%!
Hopefully, we see more new listings this week, as next week will be slow as a result of the Memorial Day long weekend. After that, we’ll have essentially four weeks before the typical summer slowdown in new listings…
As for Seattle buyers, last week they put 229 homes under contract last week, up 2.7% week-over-week. So buyers are out there, and that’s what is keeping prices high.
Does this crazy weather have you thinking about living on the water? (As of 2021, only 53% of Seattle-area homes had AC!) If so, last week we listed my family’s floating home for sale! If you’re in the market, you’ll also want to check out this new floating home listing at Ward’s Cove for $3.8m, this one for $2.65m at Roanoke Reef, and the small houseboat made famous in Macklemore’s Next Year video. Or here’s our list of condos with a pool :).
What else caught our eye last week? A midcentury designed by a former dean of the UW Architecture School went pending in a day, a late 60s contemporary on Mercer Island, a midcentury in Shorewood, and a loft in Eastlake.
Go Kraken!
P.S. Our next home-buying class is in-person! RSVP here. (We have a Zoom option too.)
