Market Update — December 2024
We firmly 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 November 2024 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 three years in the Greater Seattle area over the past three years:
Homes sold: 5,466 homes were sold in November 2024 (compared to 4,367 in November 2023). The median price of $645,000 which represents a 7.3% increase YOY. This total sale volume translates to a dollar value of about $4.3B.
New construction: 737 new construction homes were sold in November 2024. The median sale price of new construction homes was $750,000.
Months of inventory: Given the current quantity of supply, it’ll take 2.31 months 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. The counties with the lowest months of inventory in November 2024 were Snohomish (1.37), Kitsap (1.72), King (1.91), Thurston (1.99), and Pierce (2.1). The data indicates the persistent shortage of supply relative to demand.
New listings: 4,768 new listings were added to the NWMLS database in November 2024 representing an increase of 3.8% compared to November 2023.
Mortgage rates: This month the Freddie Mac rate shows no major month-over-month change.
Average 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rates over the past 12 months (Source: Freddie Mac)
Broader U.S. economy
Low Fire, Low Hire Trend Lingers: Initial Jobless Claims rose 9,000 in the latest week, with 224,000 people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time. However, Continuing Claims fell by 25,000, as 1.871 million people are still receiving benefits after filing their initial claim. Despite this most recent decline, Continuing Claims remain elevated, now topping 1.8 million for the 26th week in a row.
Annual Home Price Growth Continues: CoreLogic’s Home Price Index showed that home prices nationwide rose 0.02% in October, which was stronger than forecasts. Prices were also 3.4% higher when compared to October of last year. CoreLogic forecasts that home prices will fall 0.03% in November and rise 2.4% in the year going forward, though their forecasts tend to be conservative.
