Multiple offers now norm as home shopping hits fever pitch
May 6, 2015, 9:52 AM | Updated: Oct 10, 2024, 1:57 pm
A lack of inventory has pushed competition for local homes to a fever pitch with no relief in sight.
“We are still very clearly in the midst of a seller’s market and unless we see a significant increase in listings, it will remain that way for the foreseeable future,” said OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate in a statement released by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
Prices on last month’s closed sales were up 12.4 percent in the region tracked by NWMLS, which includes 23 counties in the state. The median price for April’s sales of single family homes and condos was $309,000, which compares to the year-ago price of $275,000. For single family homes only (excluding condos), the median price rose from $287,500 to $320,000 for a gain of 11.3 percent. Condo prices jumped nearly 13.8 percent system-wide.
In King County, where homes fetch the highest prices, the median price of last month’s sales of single family homes was $480,000. That reflects a gain of 11.5 percent from the year ago price of $430,500. King County condo prices increased about 8.8 percent from a year ago, rising from $250,000 to $272,000, the NWMLS reported.
“What’s available and that looks at least ‘pretty good’ is selling,” said Dick Beeson, principal managing broker at RE/MAX Professionals in Tacoma. Commenting on the latest MLS statistics, he said, “What we have in the Greater Puget Sound real estate market is too many buyers chasing too few homes.”
Multiple offers have become expected. One Kitsap County seller received 16 offers on a $698,000 property while a waterfront estate listed at $2,098,000 is under contract at $2,512,000.
NWMLS members added 11,495 new listings to inventory during April, but brisk sales kept supply tight and well below the level of a year ago. At the end of April, the MLS reported 18,132 listings of single family homes and condominiums in its database, a drop of more than 15 percent from the year-ago total of 21,390.
Compared to March, inventory at the end of April improved by 6.6 percent, but pending sales jumped 13.7 percent from the previous month, the NWMLS reported.
