Seattle weekly wrap-up: buyers continue to hit pause
It was another very slow week for Seattle real estate due to the highest mortgage rates that we’ve seen in the last 20 years; the week ended with rates at 7.12%! With 155 homes going pending last week, it was slightly busier than the really slow week, the week before, but consider that during the same week last year, we saw 317 homes go pending. From the buyers I’ve spoken with, many are going to wait until 2023; it is going to be a tough Q4 for sellers with active listings. Though we heard of a few bidding wars this past week – a Queen Anne condo had four offers and a Beacon Hill home only needed two offers to get $100k over asking.
Likely in response to higher rates, new construction projects have been rolling out fall promotions to drive sales, $75k at Infinity Shore Club, lower prices plus a credit at Spire, and rate buydowns at Nexus. Speaking of new construction, we stopped by First Light to see how things are going, they’ve got 13 of 48 floors poured.
Keep in mind you don’t need to buy new construction to get a credit or a rate buydown. Of the 1852 listings on the market, 895 have been on the market for more than 30 days. I would imagine many of those sellers would love to sell their homes by making a deal of one sort or another.
On the blog, we dug into the numbers for September. Seattle single-family home pricing is now 11% off its peak but is still up 7% year-over-year. As for condos, they’re also 11% off their peak and down 1% year-over-year. Digging deeper into the numbers, pending sales were down for both, when they should have been up, and inventory is growing – it is going to make for an interesting Q4.
As for new listings, we saw 266 new ones in Seattle and only 27 had an offer review deadline. Buyers also saw 236 new price reductions last week. Which of those new listings did we love? A midcentury in Wedgwood and a great townhome overlooking Lake Union. Now here are a few unusual listings… a lofty workshop in Fremont and an office building with a penthouse on top.
