Seattle's Hottest Real Estate Areas

Are there really only eleven active bank-owned residential listings in Seattle today??? 

This excludes condominiums, townhomes or mobile homes. And of course, Seattle has the distinction of having the second lowest rate of home sales inventory in all of the country's major metropolitan areas.


The Seattle Real Estate Market set a new low water mark in a recent week with only 459 single family residences for sale in the ENTIRE CITY!!!  This week, there are only 285 residential listings, if you exclude condos, townhomes, mobile homes, etc. That said, overall average days on the market is increasing despite the falling inventory meaning that of those 459 homes for sale in Seattle, more than half of them are aged listings…aka, they’ve been on the market awhile and are apparently priced too high for what they offer.  Thus, if we could come up with some sort of metric for Attractive Inventory, I can assure you it would be considerably less than even the 459 we’re seeing now.  With the average price per square foot still about 21% higher this year than at this time of year last year, the Seattle Housing Market is set for another strong year of appreciation heading into 2017. 

On that note, now that 2016 is about done Redfin compiled a list of the “30 Most Competitive Neighborhoods of 2016 [in the US]”.  The greater Seattle area was home to 10 of the 30 most competitive neighborhoods based on the percentage of homes that went over asking, and how many days they were listed on the market.  Read the full article here: https://www.redfin.com/blog/2016/12/most-competitive-neighborhoods-of-2016.html

Happy Investing!

Seattle Inventory

As expected, inventory levels did not rise during the holidays.  In fact, only 37 new listings hit the Seattle proper market last week!  Record low inventory levels, combined with continuing strong demand have set Seattle up to have another banner year in 2017.  Zillow actually ranks the Greater Seattle Region as the projected second hottest market in the nation for 2017 (Nashville with all their growth in the healthcare sector came in first).  The interesting, but maybe not so surprising aspect of the report was the neighborhoods Zillow thinks will appreciate the most in Seattle – South Seattle (Jackson Place, Rainier Beach, and Brighton); Delridge over in West Seattle; and Northwest Bellevue.  To me this is interesting, but taking a step back I can’t say I’m too surprised.  Borrowers have been expanding their search out of the most competitive Seattle neighborhoods, and into the lower priced, less competitive surrounding areas.  Like a rising tide lifts all boats – the neighborhoods of Seattle that appreciated the most last year are now projected to lift the surrounding neighborhoods with spill-over buyers who have decided to expand their search.

Check out the full article on Zillow’s report here:  http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/01/06/zillow-lists-regions-hottest-housing-markets-and.html

Today's blog courtesy of Kyle Bergquist, Guild Mortgage

Happy Investing!