April House Sales

Bucking the national trend, the price of King County houses has risen for the fourth month in a row, reaching a median $465,000 in April, according to statistics released Monday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. At the same time, single-family home sales are slowing throughout much of the four-county Central Puget Sound region. The majority of single-family homes sold within Seattle last month went for more than the asking price, an analysis by Windermere Real Estate shows. That trend in Seattle was strongest for two-bedroom houses. Less expensive because of their small size, they’re in high demand as “starter homes.” They brought an average 100.43 percent of their asking price, Windermere found. Three-bedroom houses — the largest percentage of sales — on average sold for 100.25 percent of asking. Only five-bedroom houses in Seattle, which as a group are larger and more expensive, sold for less: 97.6 percent of the original asking price. Buoyed by a strong local economy that’s been growing at twice the national rate, some 64 percent of all Seattle houses sold within 30 days, Windermere reported. In other parts of the country, where the economy is more sluggish and foreclosures have started to push down prices, average selling times are 90 days or more. “If it’s a good, clean property and priced right,” it will sell quickly, said Jerry Martin, broker and owner of RE/MAX Northwest Realtors-Kirkland. He noted that homes priced below $500,000 sold the fastest, sometimes receiving multiple offers. Plus there are significantly more properties to choose from compared with a year ago.

In King County, the number of houses available increased 38 percent in April. The number of condos for sale rose 74 percent as more new buildings and conversions came on the market. That strong uptick helps explain why pending sales for houses and condos combined fell 5.4 percent last month compared with a year earlier. Pending sales reflect the relationship between the number of available properties and the number of accepted transactions.

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