Seattle single-family September market report: median price continues to cool

The numbers for what the Seattle single-family and townhome real estate market did in September are out and there is good news for buyers with the median price declining from a high of $893,500 in May to $831,000 for September.

This isn’t surprising as prices typically peak in the spring/early summer and cool off in the back half of the year. And of course, while the median price is down, our experience writing offers day in and day out is that the market is still very competitive for good homes. Last week we offered on a single-family home in Whittier Heights that had 19 offers and went 27% over asking.

Our advice to buyers is that, depending on what you’re looking for, you may get a better deal now than in the spring/early summer of 2020 or in 2022. Though if you’re looking for what many would consider a nice, move-in-ready house, you’re likely to be frustrated with a lack of options and when something does come up it, it may be more competitive than the spring as there are many buyers focused on fewer listings.

Our advice to sellers is that if you have a move-in-ready great house, no need to wait until 2022, the market is strong for selling now.

Here’s a deep dive into all the numbers…

Like median price the median dollars per square foot, is also down.

In September, buyers were active, putting 966 homes under contract. This is up from July and August, which isn’t surprising, September is a more active month than the summer months when buyers are typically on vacation, but noteworthy as compared to previous years, it was a busier September than usual.

While buyers were active, given the median price went down, it isn’t surprising to see days on market trend up to 7 days (which is still short!)

In September we saw the number of new listings jump to 1,108 up from 927 in August. Again, not surprising, August is typically a slow month. We actually saw nearly the same number of listings as last September when we saw 1,109 new listings. Both years are an anomaly though. Consider that in 2019, a more “normal” year, when we saw 990 new listings.

At the end of the month there were 689 homes for sale.

Months of supply is a measure of how long it’d take to sell all the homes for sale. Not surprisingly that number is low – it’d take less than a month to sell all the homes for sale. I had thought we’d see it increase in September, but it stayed steady at 0.8 months.