Seattle home prices drop by $70,000 in three months as market continues to cool

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Looking just at the city of Seattle, the change is even more pronounced: The median house last month sold for $760,000, a drop of $45,000 in just one month and $70,000 in three months.

Compared to a year prior, prices are still up 2.9 percent across the county, but that was the smallest increase in four years. It’s a far cry from the double-digit growth that had become the norm over the last few years.

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It’ll be interesting if it’s season or a trend. There’s still a lot of office space getting filled with new employees.

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Seems to be a nationwide trend.

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It is. I still follow what’s on the market. It’s mostly stuff that’s on a busy street, horribly dated, etc. It’s the really undesirable homes that are listed now. The prime properties get listed in spring.

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Keep in mind that in a normal market prices are lower in September than in June. Also, they are using median prices to base their drop on and that only tells you whether higher priced or lower priced homes are selling more.

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A lot of employers there today.

  • Boeing – about 80,000 employees.
  • Joint Base Lewis-McChord - about 56,000 employees.
  • Microsoft – about 42,000 employees.
  • University of Washington – about 25,000 employees.
  • Amazon – about 25,000 employees.
  • Providence Health & Services - about 20,000 employees.
  • Walmart - about 20,000 employees.
    No need to get someone to turn off all lights when the city is closed. It is packed with human.
    It was a vacant town awhile back…There was that depressing sign.
    Bill board sign
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Umm what… Is he ignoring that unless the same house sells again, the prices never drop?

Like, stock price going down, and if you never sell, you didn’t lose anything, am i right? :slight_smile:

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He’s a straight shooter. Note the name of his blog.

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So previously a different type of homes were sold and now its a different type. And its changing monthly. This is a new one for me.

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Most people selling this time of year are death, divorce, and job loss. Those homes usually aren’t the best maintained. They are less desirable than the homes people list in the spring.

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Well that’s still good, but doesn’t change the narrative, it was going up even around this time.

Either way, any cheap inventory is good inventory. We are buying mostly for the land anyways. Cheap land == more net worth long term, house condition is more or less irrelevant.

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The graph was posted for SV. Prices peak in April or May every year. Then they decline in fall. The trend repeats every year. Year-year compaiston is more useful. Bears have been pointing to RE slowdown in the fall since 2010. RE is seasonal.

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Do they fall with the same percentage between seasons every year?

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Watch inventory

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Need to be Six months:smile:

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I predicted 2017 would be a recession. Got no dog in this fight. Now maybe 2020? There will definitely be a slowdown sooner or later. But it is hard to imagine prices going down during a housing shortage.

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I don’t recall Q3 2017 having rising prices. Maybe the graphs look different, but I recall mid-end Q4 at the lower price points jumping before showing up in the peninsula region in Q1.

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The same doom and gloom forecasts were happening back in fall of 2016.

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Glenn has some good points

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