June Real Estate Market Update

Despite the headwinds of the debt ceiling issues in May, our market continued to move forward steadily though not quite with the typical growth we see in the late Spring to Summer in most years. We saw inventory up marginally - though it is still incredibly low which strongly favors sellers (at least in the first 5-8 days on market).

Days on market held steady in King County, though rose from 5 to 8 days in Snohomish county. This is also still low, especially compared to 3-4 months ago when we were above 20 days.

List to Sell Price ratios were up to 101.6% in King County, and fell a bit in Snohomish County to 100.1%

Prices were up 2-3% month to month in King and Snohomish county, though were down 8-10% compared to this time last year. Median home prices peaked in May-June 2022…

... so we expect to continue to report year to year “losses” through June or July. However as we get to August we’re likely to see year to year price gains, and based on growth over the last few months we’ll probably get back to peak local prices by September-October of this year.

From April - May interest rates rose about 0.14% to 6.57%, and they continued to rise through June topping out at 7.05%, however they’ve since come down to 6.8% after the debt ceiling issues were settled.

Our regional market is strong and resilient, weathering inflation, higher interest rates, economic uncertainty and debt ceiling shenanigan, however these issues definitely slowed progress by keeping some sellers, buyers and investors on the sidelines.

We’re expecting the Spring uncertainties and interest rates will cause our market to peak a bit late this year - most likely in August or September, especially if we see the expected decline in interest rates resulting from continued declining inflation and decreasing rhetoric on a potential recession. When interest rates decline below 6.25% we expect more neighbors will get back into action with their plan which should bring more home inventory and more buyer competition. Right now is a bit of a sweet spot for buyers with decent interest rates and less competition than there will be when rates are lower.