Market Update — April 2023
We believe timely and relevant data is key to making good decisions. To this end, we are committed to providing our community and clients with actionable data and insights about the local real estate market.
Local real estate market
With the data from March 2023 in, here’s an overview of the key aspects of the local real estate market. The real estate data below is collected from Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS).
Median price: The chart below shows the latest median sales prices of homes over the past five years. Since our buyers typically buy properties in King, Snohomish, and Pierce Counties, here’s the Year-Over-Year (YOY) median closed price increase in these counties over the past 12 months:
King: +5.2%
Snohomish: +7.2%
Pierce: +5.7%
To put these numbers in perspective, S&P 500 and Nasdaq have moved by 0.1% and 0.6% YOY, respectively.
And here are the median sold prices of residential properties in the Greater Seattle area over the past three years:
New construction: 1,050 new construction homes were sold in March 2023. The median sale price of new construction homes was $699,990.
Months of inventory: At the current rate of sales, it’ll take more than one month for every listed home to sell. To put this number in context, note that the months of inventory for a balanced market is considered to be 4 to 6 months. So the current value of around 1 confirms the persistent shortage of supply relative to demand in the area.
Homes sold: 5,817 homes were sold in March 2023. This translates to a dollar value of $4.2B.
New listings: 7,904 new listings were added to the NWMLS database in March 2023. This is a decrease of -29% from March 2022, which exacerbates the low supply. This indicates fewer property owners are interested in selling their homes exacerbating the chronic shortage of supply.
Mortgage rates: The Freddie Mac rate showed a 30 basis point decrease from mid-March 2023 to mid-April 2023. The market is awaiting the Fed decision on the base rate in May.
30 Year Fixed Mortgage Rates — April 2022 to April 2023 (Source: Freddie Mac)
Broader economy
Initial Jobless Claims continued to move higher this month, with the number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time rising by 5,000 in the latest week to 245,000. This tied the third highest reading so far this year. Continuing Jobless Claims also surged to 1.865 million, up 61,000.
The Conference Board released their Leading Economic Index (LEI) for March, which was down 1.2%, falling to “its lowest level since November of 2020, consistent with worsening economic conditions ahead,” said Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, Senior Manager, Business Cycle Indicators. This report is a composite of economic indexes and can signal peaks and troughs in the business cycle.
