Edgewood, WA Real Estate Blog » Federal Way

More short sale stats for Fife, Milton, Edgewood & Federal Way, WA

Lee Mason, The Masters Realty Group LLC — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:07:59 +0000

Continuing on the subject of my previous post, here’s a look at the market composition of organic versus short sales versus bank REOs (Real Estate Owned – foreclosures or deed in lieu of foreclosures):

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So about 3/4 organic listings, 1/5 short sales, and about one in twenty are bank REOs.

Now take a look at the closed transactions over the past 30 days (from 10/14/09):

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Well, you can sure see where the action is - bank REOs. Only about one in twenty listings are REOs, but they disproportionately represented almost one in three of the total sales.

Surprisingly, it’s the organic sales that are most underrepresented. The proportion of short sale listings to short sale closings isn’t that different. And these are actual closings, not pendings. As you can see in my previous post, the majority of short sales that close go pending multiple times.

A statistical snapshot of short sales for Edgewood/Milton/Fife/Federal Way

Lee Mason, The Masters Realty Group LLC — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:26:45 +0000

The number of listings offered as short sales has climbed dramatically since the onset of the financial/housing crisis.

Rather than settle for the anecdotal and second hand information, I decided to take a closer look at the activity over the past 6 months of short sale activity.

The results are interesting, especially for a buyer considering a short sale.

There were 35 total short sales that actually closed for the areas I selected over the past 6 month period. One often hears the horror stores about how long they take to close – if they ever close. I wanted to know how long they actually took to close.

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As you can see, it’s true that many short sales take relatively longer than the typical organic pending period of 30-45 days… some an awful lot longer. As a buyer the question of “is it going to take 30-40 days or 110+ days to close?… and am I OK with not knowing which?” is important to be answered before entering into a short sale. Of course investor buyers have a lot less concern here as compared to an owner occupied type buyer.

Next I wanted to determine if it’s possible to glean any insight as to which short sale transactions will actually close so I decided to take a look at how many times a short sale property went pending before it actually closed. Keep in mind the following graph includes only those properties that actually closed in the end, and doesn’t include properties that haven’t closed or those that slipped into foreclosure.

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As you can see, more than 50% of short sales that closed went pending more than once. To me this implies that a buyer has a better chance of closing if they enter into a transaction for a property that has failed to close previously. One explanation may be that the lender(s) need to be softened up by the market before accepting a price.

Another thing to note is the number of pending sales and the ratio of pending sales to closings will be really distored when short sales are included.

The last parameter I looked at was the number of price changes made before a property closed. Here zero price changes mean the listed price wasn’t reduced before entering into a sale that closed (although it could have had transactions that failed to close multiple times).

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Note there is no information here regarding the size of the price change. And there were a couple of examples where the price actually increased. I was surprised to see this number of price changes. I don’t know whether this has to do with sellers being unwilling to come to grips with the market or whether agents are attempting to provide documented evidence to lenders regarding the veracity of their sales price versus the market.

Never the less, it remains that successful short sales experience a high number of price changes.

January 2009 Real Estate Statistics for Edgewood, WA and Surrounding Cities

Lee Mason, The Masters Realty Group LLC — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:43:47 +0000

Statistics for January 2009 for Edgewood and surrounding cities have just been updated.

Notwithstanding some of the recent comments of the usual real estate spokespeople, the market price levels continue to deteriorate. Remember the data is not seasonally adjusted. Never the less, the trend is pretty easy to discern.

Peak to trough median prices widened in Janary and inventory levels continue to climb.

I’m not sure what happened in Northeast Tacoma last month but there were only 4 sales reported. That really skewed the inventory figure for that area. With so little data, one cannot rule out an anomaly rather than a trend.

New statistics for Edgewood, WA and surrounding cities real estate market

Lee Mason, The Masters Realty Group LLC — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:14:04 +0000

Statistics for September 2008 for Edgewood and surrounding cities have just been updated.

Things appear to be changing a bit. However, keep in mind the data is not seasonally adjusted (although you can see what was happening last year at this time).

Inventory seems to be coming down, at least for King County. Prices continue to drift downward. Some of this drift may be due to the disparity of rates between conforming and jumbo (conforming and non-conforming) loans.

I have not compiled pending data below. The mainstream media is ballyhooing an increase in pending sales (an improving market) which generally reflects the most recent trends (0-30 days back versus actual solds which reflects what happened 30-60 days ago). But keep in mind NWMLS changed the way pendings are tabulated. Houses that were sold subject to inspection were categorized as actives. Now they are classified as pendings subject to inspection. So the method of classification has changed. We’ll need to see how much effect this has by correlating pendings to solds in the future.

Never the less, it remains a buyer’s market.

Real Estate Statistics for July 2008 for Edgewood and Surrounding Cities

Lee Mason, The Masters Realty Group LLC — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:30:15 +0000

Statistics for July 2008 for Edgewood and surrounding cities have just been updated.

More of the same – median prices drifting downward. Still looking for a trend of increasing sales which would portend a “bottom”. It just isn’t there. Lacking an increase in sales, months of inventory is “stuck” at a high level.

Keep in mind figures are not seasonally adjusted.

Pierce County appears to be doing somewhat worse than King county.

With Federal Way located right on the border of King and Pierce County, it will be interesting to see what effect Weyerhauser’s reduction of employees will have. It can’t be good.

Statistics for June 2008 for Edgewood and surrounding cities have just been posted.

Lee Mason, The Masters Realty Group LLC — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:50:02 +0000

Most areas show a marginal improvement in markets, at least from a seller’s perspective. Keep in mind closed sales are contracts that were written 45-60 days ago when the seasonal selling period typically peaks.

Federal Way (areas 100 and 110) and NE Tacoma (areas 94-95) are exceptions.

All areas ( based on inventory levels) remain decidedly a buyer’s market.

May 2008 real estate statistics for Edgewood and surrounding cities

Lee Mason, The Masters Realty Group LLC — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:48:31 +0000

The numbers are interesting this month. As you would expect for this time of year, the number of listings is increasing for both King and Pierce Counties. Yet the number of absolute sales is decreasing. Buyers are holding back. Interestingly days on market for King county are drifting downward while they are drifting upward for Pierce County.

Months of inventory are up for both counties. This is the number of months it would take to sell all the homes on the market at that months sales rate assuming no new homes came on the market. Of course we know additional homes are always coming on the market. A four to six month inventory is considered neutral – neither a buyer’s nor a seller’s market. As you can see, we definitely have a buyer’s market in both King and Pierce Counties.

Keep in mind that “Solds” generally represent activity 45-60 days ago whereas “Pendings” (sold but not closed) represent activity 0-30 days back.

Inventory levels for local areas (Edgewood, Milton, Fife, Sumner, Federal Way & NE Tacoma) really shot up in May as more people put their homes on the market and overall sales activity decreased.

Median sales prices, while all over the board month to month, are down from a year ago.

April 2008 Real Estate Statistics for Edgewood and Surrounding Cities Shows Improvement

Lee Mason, The Masters Realty Group LLC — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:29:59 +0000

Statistics for April 2008 for Edgewood and surrounding cities have just been updated.

Things are improving over March in all areas. Inventories remain high, however, in all areas. Interestingly, King County shows an uptick in overall inventory while Pierce County’s went down. Usually, you see the reverse.

All areas show a decline in median sales prices from a year ago.

Days on market improved (shortened) for all areas except Federal Way which for some reason tended the other way.