Is Seattle’s real estate market cooling?

After a chaotic summer that saw extremely low housing inventory, bidding wars and record-breaking jumps in median sale prices, Seattle’s tight real estate market could be showing signs of cooling off for the fall season.

A new market report form the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) found that competition for homes in Seattle eased slightly in July, with brokers adding more listings and less homes going under contract. The agency saw slightly fewer pending sales in July than in June and May.

Some of that slowdown might be seasonal, while other experts took into account that the state lifted all COVID-19 restrictions on June 30, and more people could be traveling after spending so much time at home.

“Although the local market is intense, buyers can find some relief because there aren’t as many offers to compete with compared to earlier this year,” said J. Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate in a news release Thursday. “August historically is the last month of the year with elevated levels of new listings before they slowly taper down in the fall and decline more substantially over the winter.”

However, inventory still remains historically low and prices are still climbing, meaning any breathing room for homebuyers might be short lived. Across all 26 Washington counties surveyed by the NWMLS, there is only 0.73 months of inventory. And only 12 counties report having more than one month of supply.

“Despite the extreme shortage of inventory and robust sales activity, there seems to be a bit of a leveling off from the market frenzy,” said Gary O’Leyar, broker owner at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Signature Properties. “In my opinion this is due to a typical mid-summer season market combined with some buyer fatigue.”

Prices also continued to climb. In June, median sale prices for homes in the region soared 30% compared to the previous year, marking a new record high. In King County, the median home sale price hit $775,000 in May, up 23% from the same time last year.

However, that growth is not just in the Seattle metro area. Many brokers said that suburban counties along the Interstate 5 corridor have seen sharp price increases, mirroring the fact that homes in the heart of Seattle are appreciating at a slower rate than homes located away from downtown.

“Prices in Lewis County are up 54.2% from the July 2019 level, Snohomish County is up 40.6%, and Island County is up 44.3%,” said James Young, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington. “The search for value in the suburbs with sharp price increases suggest households are making their housing preferences known. They want to own rather than rent.”

One area of the market continues to rebound from the pandemic: condominium sales. New listings outpaced pending sales in July, and prices rose more modestly at 12.6%. In King County, where the majority of condos are sold, the median priced condo sold for $460,000.

Brokers are advising residents to make the most of the seasonal lull in the market while also warning potential sellers about overpricing.

“My advice to buyers would be to take advantage of this time before Labor Day and the fall market,” said O’Leyar. “[For sellers,] don’t get overly hyped with anecdotal information about the real estate market. Overpricing a listing in this market is still a big mistake.”

~Callie Craighead, Seattle P-I

Relief for buyers coming?

Price growth should fall to single-digit increases by June 2022, CoreLogic forecasts

Home prices continue to increase as national inventory levels remain low heading into August. But relief for buyers could be coming in the next 12 months.

Home prices increased 2.3% from May to June, and 17.2% year-over-year, according to the latest CoreLogic report on home prices. However, CoreLogic officials said price gains could slow to as low as a 3.2%-gain by this time next year, as ongoing affordability challenges deter potential buyers — as well as an uptick in new for sale listings.

“Home prices have been rising in the mid single-digits for some years now, and the recent surge to double digit price jumps reflect the convergence of exceptional demand persistent low supply,” said Frank Marshall, CoreLogic CEO and president. “Affordability will become a more acute issue for the foreseeable future.”

The 17.2% growth is the largest annual growth reported since 1979, as supply and demand pressures endure and construction costs continue to rise, said Frank Nothaft, CoreLogic’s chief economist. Low- and middle-income Americans, he said, are being impacted the most.

At the residential level, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked an increase in buyer desire for lower density neighborhoods and more living space, Nothaft said. This, he said, led to detached homes having the highest annual growth (+19.1%) in June since 1976.

“Communities with single-family detached houses fill the need [for more space],” Nothaft said.

May home prices also jumped 16.6% annually in the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index report. Home prices in May stood at all-time highs in 18 of the 20 S&P cities surveyed, and five cities – Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, and Seattle – recorded their all-time highest 12-month gains. 

Phoenix’s 25.9% increase led all cities for the 24th consecutive month in accelerating home prices, with San Diego (+24.7%) and Seattle (+23.4%) close behind. Prices were strongest in the West (+19.9%) and Southwest (+19.8%), but every region logged double-digit gains from April to May.

Continuing to look regionally, home prices in the western United States are still accelerating. Twin Falls, Idaho, where Evel Knievel famously attempted to jump a canyon in 1974 in a steam-powered rocket, experienced the highest year-over-year increase in the country, at 40.2%. Bend, Oregon, with beautiful scenery, a bevy of craft breweries and microscopic home inventory, saw the second-highest home price increase in the country year-over-year, at 35.4%. States with the highest annual home price growth in June were Idaho (34.2%), Arizona (26.1%), and Montana (24.3%).

“Home buyers are continuing to seek out more affordable locations with lower population density and attractive outdoor activities,” Nothaft said.

The markets expected to see the largest increases in home prices in the next 12 months, per CoreLogic, are San Diego, California (+11.5% expected increase); Miami-Miami Beach, Florida (+4.6% expected increase); and Las Vegas, Chicago, and Los Angeles (+4.3% expected increase for all three).

The markets at risk for the biggest home price declines over the next 12 months are Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts; Chico and Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, California; and Norwich-New London, Connecticut, Corelogic’s study found.

The overall pending home sales index fell 1.9% to 112.8 in June, according to the National Association of Realtors, which tracks the metric. (An index of 100 is equal to the average level of contract activity during 2001, the first year examined. The volume of existing-home sales in 2001 was within the range of 5 to 5.5 million.)

Regionally, pending home sales in the Northeast increased 0.5% to 98.5 on the index in June, an 8.7% rise from a year ago. In the Midwest, the index grew 0.6% to 108.3 last month, down 2.4% from June 2020. Pending home sales in the South fell 3.0% to an index of 132.4 in June, down 4.7% from June 2020. The index in the West decreased 3.8% in June to 98.1, down 2.6% from a year prior. May’s 8% increase was the highest jump for that month since 2005, according to NAR.

~Tim Glaze, Housing Wire

Housing boom will end when interest rates rise

The current housing boom will flatten in 2022—or possibly early 2023—when mortgage interest rates rise. There is no bubble to burst, though prices may retreat from panic-buying highs.

The boom produced some frantic buying, bids in excess of asking prices, and plenty of worry among would-be homeowners. But this has not been a bubble. A bubble is not simply rising prices, but demand not justified by fundamental economic factors. The key to the buying boom has been low mortgage rates plus a shift in desired housing type.

Mortgage rates hit what was then an all-time low of four percent in 2011, and then remained in that neighborhood until the pandemic, when they hit three percent. The decline in mortgage rates in 2020 dropped the monthly payment on a house by 12 percent, enabling many people to buy houses now rather than later.

In addition to the low mortgage rates, some people saw a future of remote work and wanted more space, which often means moving out of an apartment into a single family house. Others found urban living less fun, so they headed into the suburbs where houses are more common than apartments.

The increased demand for houses drove prices up, quite predictably. Yet the supply could not adjust as fast as demand. Home builders ramped up production in the second half of 2020, but after a few months they ran into supply constraints. Ready-to-build lots were all bought up, labor for construction was hard to find and social distancing made workers less productive. Now rising materials prices and goods on back-order squeeze profit margins. That’s how we find ourselves in the current housing boom.

But this boom is not a bubble, because the rise in prices is easily explained by the fundamentals of cheap mortgages and supply limitations. Recent housing starts are below historical averages, though that is justified by lower population growth. But with the shift from multifamily to single family housing, recent construction levels make sense. There need be no sudden drop in new construction to maintain a reasonable equilibrium.

When will the boom end? The two keys are satisfying the new demand and mortgage rates. Low mortgage rates allowed young families to buy houses earlier than they otherwise would have. It did not change the economics of buying for people who were never going to be homeowners. Instead, low mortgage rates enabled people to achieve their dreams earlier than they otherwise would have. In this sense, the strong housing market of 2020 and 2021 has been borrowing from the future. However, the shift in preferences from urban living to suburban living by people who previously could have bought houses is permanent new demand. At least, so long as they don’t become disillusioned about home ownership.

Mortgage rates are likely to rise when financial markets anticipate more inflation and action by the Federal Reserve to stem inflation. Although the Fed’s traditional tools impact short-term rates, with only small effect on mortgage rates, the new actions by the Fed impact mortgages directly. The Fed has been buying mortgages wholesale, depressing mortgage interest rates. The Fed has also been buying many treasury securities, which are often competitors to mortgages for institutional investors.

Mortgage rates are likely to rise a full percentage point by mid-2022, though this forecast exceeds the average prediction of my fellow economists. They doubt long-term interest rates will rise by a percentage point even out to December 2022. If they are right and I am wrong, then the housing market will remain strong longer.

Business leaders in the housing supply chain should enjoy their strong sales this year but not anticipate further growth in the coming years. Major capital projects must pencil out with sales back at 2019 levels.

Prospective home buyers should probably chill. It’s been a tough buying season. Although prices are unlikely to fall nationwide, there will probably be easier buying opportunities in 2023.

by Bill Conerly, Forbes