April 2022 Seattle Housing Market Update

We Discuss Why There is Extremely Strong Spring Housing Activity For the Seattle Housing Market in April 2022

This article will be about the current and future state of the Seattle area housing market. We’ll start with our 60 second video discussing the 3 key indicators and how they affect the market.

Then an infographic and some quick stats we think are important, then we’ll dive into what story the statistics are telling us.  Next we will hear from the 24th most influential person in real estate, Lennox Scott and what he sees happing in the Seattle market.  We will do a short breakdown on Sales Activity, Days on Market, Price, Interest Rates, Timing and Job and Population Growth.  A complete list of the MLS Infospark stats for Seattle housing market trends.

Lastly, don't forget to check out the newest Seattle homes for sale.

ENJOY OUR SEATTLE HOUSING MARKET REPORT IN 60 SECONDS VIDEO

THE SEATTLE HOUSING MARKET AT A GLANCE


Seattle housing market update infographic

Click Image For Full Size


Despite interest rates jumping and increased new listings the inventory remains in an Extreme Shortage, sales activity at an Extreme Frenzy and average sales price at all time highs.

THE SEATTLE HOUSING MARKET ANALYSIS FOR APRIL 2022


SEATTLE HOUSING MARKET REPORT QUICKSTATS

  • Average Sales Price INCREASED by $106k total to $1.01mil
  • New Listings INCREASED to 1,525
  • Sold Homes INCREASED to 1,141
  • Pending Sales INCREASED to 1,324
  • Percentage of Sold Price to List Price INCREASED to 109.2%
  • Interest Rates INCREASED to a Historically Great 4.78%
  • Home Inventory REMAINED at .4 Months of Supply

Every month we gather all the facts, data and statistics about the Seattle Housing Market and share them with you.  We will discuss the 3 major factors in determining the strength of the market.

    • Monthly Inventory Level
    • Percentage of Homes That Go Pending In First 30 Days
    • Current Interest Rates

The data tells a story about the current state of our local residential real estate market.


We are in an interesting time where we are seeing high levels of listings added to the market, interest rates have jumped up and sales prices have increased.

We are starting the spring market where we traditionally see the most new listings hit the market as is evidenced by the 1,525 new listings added in March.  Compared to the 501 new listings added in December.

We are also seeing interest rates steadily creep up nearing the 5% mark.

According to Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors, “Higher mortgage rates will inevitably pull home sales down in the coming months and slow home price appreciation”.

So fare we have not seen this play out as the inventory level remained low, average sales prices and the percentage of sold to list price both increased sharply in March.

There is hope that with the combination of increased listings coming on the market, increased interest rates thinning out the buying pool and people being more careful with their cash that we could see the inventory levels increase a bit over the course of the summer.

There are other factors at work such as the astronomically high rents in Seattle.

According to ApartmentList.com Seattle's median 3-bedroom rent for an apartment is $3,927 month.  Which equates to approximately a $720K home with 20% down on a 30 year fixed 4.78% interest rate loan.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported the US inflation rate rose to 6.8% the highest it has been since 1982.  The best hedge for inflation is real estate.  As we are seeing public figures like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos buy real estate at an extraordinary rate.

As we have been talking about for a few months Seattle has the 2nd highest percentage of tech workers in the country.  Tech jobs bring people in from all over the world and tend to be come with an above average salary.  So what do tons of new people with above average salaries need when they get to Seattle, a place to live.

When you add the large number of high income tech workers with the still historically low interest rates and the desire for people to move into larger homes that accommodate all the at home activities that people have gotten used to it is easy to see how we have a backlog of buyers.

Despite WA being fully open we will continue to offer a full suite of Virtual Real Estate Services.

Extremely Strong Spring Housing Activity

The housing market is following normal spring seasonality with more resale listings coming on the market and a higher number of homes reported as pending. For the Seattle market, there continues to be an ultra-extreme shortage of unsold homes under $2 million where 96 percent of sales activity takes place.

Home mortgage interest rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels. As far as the future outlook for the housing market goes, we will focus on the overall economy, especially job growth.

J Lennox Scott

LENNOX SCOTT

CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate


Lennox Scott

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