Weekly Scorecard 9-14-09

By George Thurtle

Another big drop in inventory. This week the number of listed homes in the NWMLS for area 530 is 231. Last week it was at 249. Two weeks ago this number was over 280. Five homes sold this week and only one was bank owned. The average per sq. ft. sales price was stuck at $225. This number just seems to stay in that $220 per sq. ft. range. The average sale price was $483,500. Pretty typical East Bellevue numbers. There were no new home sales or waterfront sales in these numbers.

There are six pending sales; in this batch of pending sales there were three bank owned homes and one short sale. This is the first time in a long time we have seen this much distressed inventory in the numbers. Also this week broke the trend of having the per sq. ft. sales price of the pending homes exceed that of the sold homes. Due to the distressed inventory the per sq. ft. sales price was $196 per sq. ft. one of the lowest numbers yet.

Bank owned inventory appears on the decline but the mystery is why the declining inventory situation. My guess is that sellers who came to the market when there was a bounce in spring were hopeful at obtaining better pricing. That wish hasn’t worked out. The buyers remain stuck at the price it gets them to buy and they seem to wait and pick off inventory. It looks like some of the sellers have taken their ball and gone home to try again next year.

I will be gone this week but will update the Distressed Inventory report and Weekly Scorecard when I get back next Tuesday.

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