Seattle weekly wrap-up: Christmas came early for buyers – rates in the mid-6s!

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to our Mary’s Place fundraiser. As a reminder – our weekly updates on Seattle real estate are a labor of love! And are free! Often written over the weekend, in-between kids’ activities, they take way longer to write than you’d ever guess. So as a regular reader, we’d love to see you support our end-of-year fundraiser for Mary’s Place. an organization that provides safe, inclusive shelter and services that support women, children, and families. This year they have had the highest amount of calls and the need is overwhelming. Urban Living will match all your donations. You can donate via Facebook, or if you’d prefer to donate directly, just forward me your receipt and we’ll match it.

Christmas came early for buyers with mortgage rates dropping down to the mid-6s last week! (They’re at 6.65% today.) This is a huge improvement from October when they hit 8% and rewinds us to the rates we saw in the spring.

Not surprisingly, we didn’t see many new listings in Seattle last week, just 83. The next two weeks will be even slower. Meanwhile, Seattle buyers put 107 homes under contract. We heard there were at least a few bidding wars last week – a fixer in Seattle had 18 offers while another on the Eastside had 23!? It should be an interesting start to 2024 if rates stay or improve since it feels like there is a fair amount of pent-up demand. If I were buying in 2024, I’d try and find a home I liked on the market now that isn’t selling…

In condo news, some Avenue Residences buyers got their keys before the holidays and we got a quick peak inside during a holiday party there (Instagram video). We also got a hardhat tour of Mari on a beautiful day (Youtube video).

Did you know Seattle has 11,000 blocks with no sidewalks!? This Seattle Times article is an eye-opener on the state of our sidewalks.