Seattle May 2008 Home Sales

The Seattle region posted its strongest signs yet of home price depreciation amid weak housing demand.

In May, the overall median sale price fell 4.3 percent from a year ago to its lowest point in 16 months, while the median price paid per square foot for resale houses dropped 7 percent. Total home sales fell 43 percent from a year ago to the lowest level for a May in at least 14 years, a real estate information service reported.

The median price paid for all homes combined in the three-county Seattle metro area in May was $344,550. That was down 1.5 percent from $349,950 in April and down 4.3 percent from $ 360,000 in May 2007, according to DataQuick Information Systems of La Jolla, Calif. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records.

Last month's median was 5.7 percent lower than the Seattle area's peak $365,200 median in June 2007. The May median's 4.3 percent year-over-year decrease was the largest for any month in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1994 for all home type categories in the Seattle area. The last time the median was lower than May's $344,550 was in January 2007, when it was $343,000.

The Seattle region's price declines, while steepening, remain among the lowest in the West.

Another home price measure, the median price paid per square foot for resale houses, suggests greater price weakness in the Seattle area than the straight median price: May's $220 median paid per square foot fell 7.1 percent from a year ago and was 8.6 percent lower than the $240 peak in July 2007. The median price per square foot has fallen on a year-over-year basis for seven consecutive months.

In May, a total of 3,900 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area encompassing King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. That was down 1.7 percent from 3,966 in April and down 43.2 percent from 6,864 in May 2007.

Last month's sales total was the lowest for a May in DataQuick's records for the region. Sales have fallen on a year-over-year basis for 24 consecutive months.

Foreclosure resales did not have a big, regionwide influence in May. About 6 percent of the homes that resold in the metro area had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months. Other major markets in the West, including much of inland California and Las Vegas, have seen foreclosure resales rise to more than half of all resale activity. Price depreciation tends to be greatest in areas dominated by foreclosure resales.

Sales and median prices in Seattle and other Western markets have been impacted by the August 2007 credit crunch, which made "jumbo" loans over $417,000 pricier and harder to obtain. In the Seattle area, the number of May transactions financed with jumbo mortgages fell 69.1 percent from a year ago, compared with the overall sales drop of 43.2 percent. Before the credit crunch hit last August, jumbo-financed home purchases represented about 16 percent of all Seattle region sales, while in May jumbo-financed deals were 10.6 percent of all sales. Since the credit crunch, the percent of home sales financed with jumbos was lowest in March, at 7.7 percent.

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA MSA

	# of Sales			Median Price
	May-07	May-08	% Chg	May-07	May-08	% Chg
Resale houses	4,354	2,447	-43.8%	$384,000	$355,000	-7.6%
Resale condos	1,059	635	-40.0%	$275,000	$280,000	1.8%
New homes	1,451	818	-43.6%	$367,000	$360,000	-1.9%
All homes	6,864	3,900	-43.2%	$360,000	$344,550	-4.3%