Market Update — May 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 April 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: 5,847 homes were sold in April 2024. The median price of $651,000 which represents a +7.9% growth YOY. This translates to a dollar value of about $4.9B.
New construction: 833 new construction homes were sold in April 2024. The median sale price of new construction homes was $749,990.
Months of inventory: Given the current quantity of supply, it’ll take around 1.7 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 four counties with the lowest months of inventory in April 2024 were were Snohomish (0.83), King (1.27), Thurston (1.47), Pierce (1.48), and Cowlitz (1.57). So the current data confirms the enduring shortage of supply relative to demand in the area.
New listings: 9,636 new listings were added to the NWMLS database in April 2024. This is an increase of 31.9% from April 2023.
Mortgage rates: While the Freddie Mac rate has edged and stayed down from it’s high in October/November 2023, it is showing signs of a slight increase in April 2024.
Average 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rates over the past 12 months (Source: Freddie Mac)
Broader economy
Fed Shuts Down Rate Hike Chatter: After eleven rate hikes since March 2022, the Fed once again left their benchmark Federal Funds Rate unchanged at a range of 5.25% to 5.5%. This decision was unanimous and marks the sixth straight meeting they held rates steady. The Fed Funds Rate is the interest rate for overnight borrowing for banks and it is not the same as mortgage rates. The Fed has been aggressively hiking the Fed Funds Rate throughout this cycle to try to slow the economy and curb the runaway inflation that became rampant over the last few years.
Job Openings Hit 3-Year Low: The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that job openings contracted to 8.488 million in March, down from 8.813 million in February and well below estimates. The hiring rate fell from 3.7% to 3.5%, while the quit rate fell from 2.2% to 2.1%.
