Home Prices slip once again

Winter months can be an excellent time to buy!

Area home prices slip from a year ago.


November's median single-family sale price in King County was $359,950, the lowest in more than five years. Prices now have dropped more than 25 percent since July 2007, when the local market peaked.

By Eric Pryne
The median price of houses sold in King County slipped to a new post-bubble low last month, according to statistics released Monday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

The number of sales also fell, dropping nearly one-third from November 2009's total.

"We're not out of the woods yet," said Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University.

November's median single-family sale price was $359,950, the lowest in more than five years. Prices now have dropped more than 25 percent since July 2007, when the local market peaked.

While it set a record, November's median price still was down just 2.7 percent from the same month last year.

Crellin said he expects prices will continue to drop on a year-over-year basis until mid-2011. Higher-priced homes now constitute a larger share of sales, he said, and that has kept the median price from dropping more steeply.

Those properties are selling, he said, because buyers are negotiating steep price discounts.

The growing number of homes in foreclosure also should keep prices down, Crellin added.

Buyers closed on 1,092 houses in November, down 31 percent from November 2009. But the drop was expected: Last November's sales were inflated by first-time buyers rushing to take advantage of a federal tax credit for first-time buyers that had been scheduled to expire at the end of that month.

That credit later was extended and expanded but expired for good earlier this year. In Southeast King County, "it's been dead ever since," said Marti Reeder, an agent at the John L. Scott Real Estate office in Kent. "October and November were complete busts."

But December is looking brighter, Reeder added. She wrote up two offers Sunday and was writing up another Monday afternoon.

King County condo sales fell even more steeply than single-family sales in November. Closed condo sales dropped 47 percent from November 2009's total. The median price, $225,000, was down nearly 11 percent year-over-year.

House sales in Snohomish County were down 27 percent from the same month last year. The median price, $260,000, fell more than 8 percent from November 2009.

While closed sales of single-family homes fell sharply last month, pending sales — offers that were accepted in November but haven't yet closed — rose 3 percent in King County. The listing service highlighted that increase in its official statement, calling it a "pleasant surprise."

It was the first year-over-year increase since the tax credits expired this spring.

But last month's total is better than November 2009's only because many potential buyers were backing off a year ago as they awaited the planned expiration of the tax credit, Crellin said.

What's more, he added, an increasing number of pending sales — especially short sales — don't close for months or don't close at all. Considering all that, the listing service's emphasis on the November increase is "a bit overstated," Crellin said.

But Peter Hickey, broker/owner at Windermere Real Estate/Northeast in Kirkland, said his office wrote up 80 percent more sales than usual during the last two weeks of November. All are strong, legitimate sales that are expected to close, he said.
"The mood is changing," Hickey said. "People are sick and tired of being scared."