Bellevue Real Estate » inventory

Weekly Scorecard 4-4-11

George Thurtle — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 01:40:33 +0000

The inventories have ticked up by a hair but the big story this week is the closed sales. West Bellevue had 18 alone. This is a record for an area which does only two to three. Many of those sales looked to be potential tear downs but that number is very high for any market. In Bellevue market area this week there was 46 closed sales in total. I believe this number is not sustainable but given the reduced inventories and these sales volumes you see why there has been an uptick values as noted on the Altos graphs. However I don’t see prices rising high enough to bring more new construction or some of the better inventory to the market. It appears that many of these sales were pending short sales that finally came together. some of these sales were in progress for six months or more and I think some of the banks wised up and decided to move on. The other notable aspect of the sales when viewing them individually was the number of the sales that the home was on the market three days or less. It was evident that when a very nice new home came on the market that was competitively priced it sold quickly and in some situations had multiple offers. In the monthly graphs that are out you can see the lines of the decreasing inventories and increasing sales. What I am seeing at the street level is that the better inventory has gotten picked off and what is remaining is stale or over priced and when a new home comes on that is very nice it looks like there are now a number of buyers willing to pounce on it quickly.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 4-4-11

Weekly Scorecard 3-21-11

George Thurtle — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 03:58:55 +0000

Finally the inventories have inched up but not as much as they should be doing this time of year. South Bellevue went up by 10 homes and East Bellevue by 7 homes but that still is not much for what should be coming on this time of year. The sales numbers were again strong and I thought the volumes would be peaking. Last week there was a big spread between the pending sales and the closed sales. This week the pending sales were up and the closed sales were down some. I thought I would see the pending sales remain low. There seems to be new buyers coming into this market keeping the sales volumes up. Also if you check the Altos stats there is definite stabilization and firming of prices. The combination of declining inventory and a relatively high sales volume seems to have had its natural result.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 3-21-11

Weekly Scorecard 2-21-11

George Thurtle — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:29:20 +0000

The inventory keeps declining. This week South Bellevue saw the largest drop in inventory to under 300 homes. The other areas stayed about the same. There are some cross currents going on though. The values do not appear headed up and a look at the inventory will show that in my opinion it is degrading with newer homes in better condition making up less and less of the overall inventory. what you are seeing is a picking off of the better homes with no replacement for those homes. The foreclosures are up but those homes and condos are at the lower end of the price spectrum and need a lot of work. The better condition homes and new construction homes have worked their way through the system. Those sellers who got caught have had to dispose of their homes and the nicer homes are now owned by sellers that will need to see price increases before they bring their home to the market. This is what I am seeing on the ground as I talk to potnetial listings.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 2-21-11

Weekly Scorecard 1-31-11

George Thurtle — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 22:58:53 +0000

The invetories appeared to have stopped declining but are not going up. This is really out of character for this tome of year no matter what the market. The sales remain brisk but when looking at the individual sales there were a bunch of low end bank homes. One even sold for under $300,000 in West Bellevue. These homes were really in por condition and needed work and would be what I would call “tail-enders”. The next couple of months will be interesting. The bank owned and short sale inventory is declining. There will be some new distressed inventory coming to the market based on what is happening recently in the “Distressed Inventory Report” of 1-29-11 but the sales appear to be absorbing the inventory. The next couple of months will be VERY interesting. Distrssed inventory has been the “tail wagging the dog” in the market. It will be interesting to see if this flips.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 1-31-11

Weekly Scorecard 1-24-11

George Thurtle — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:17:28 +0000

Still no bump up in inventories. Usually this time of year you will see inventories starting to rise and then about a month later sales increase. The increase of inventories has usually started by now. The rate of sales has moderated but both pending and closed sales are at good numbers. As discussed last week it appears that there is a declining amount of distressed sellers forced to bring the inventory to the market and that it appears that prices are not good enough to bring non-distressed sellers to the market.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 1-24-11

Weekly Scorecard 1-10-11

George Thurtle — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 22:52:03 +0000

The sales numbers remained strong but the pending sales took a dip this week all except in South Bellevue where both sold and pending sales seem to keep posting pretty good numbers. The inventories remained steady, I would have expected them to start rising again. Still looking for some market direction after the new year. specifically if the trend towards overall higher sales and reduced inventories will continue.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 1-10-11

weekly Scorecard 1-3-11

George Thurtle — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:22:24 +0000

A short report this week but taking a look at the closing this week the last week of the year saw a flurry of closings. MLS Area 500 (south Bellevue) had over 16 closings and West Bellevue had 14. These are the highest nu,mbers of the year. Also the inventories are the lowest they have been in years. As an example south Bellevue started the year with 309 homes. The inventory peaked at 419 homes in the last week of June and the year was closed out at only 288 homes. East Bellevue is another good example. Th eyear started with an inventory of 210 homes and peaked at 298 homes in the second week of July and closed the year out at only 187 homes. usually inventories do peak early summer no matter what market conditions. However there appears to be a trend of overall declining inventory and increasing sales volume. Let’s see how thuis trend plays out in the next couple of months.

Th espreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 1-3-11

Weekly scorecard 11-8-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:10:20 +0000

The pending sales and the sold home numbers are starting to correspond. As you may be aware in the past weeks the sold homes had been outpacing the pending sales by almost two to one. It was speculated that this was a hangover from the home buyer’s tax credit offered by the government and the corresponding lack of new pending sales were buyers pulling back from the market after the expiration of that incentive. The market now seems to be getting back to an undistorted condition and we will get to see what the true underlying market is in terms of demand and pricing. The interesting number this week is that pendings sales are exceeding closed sales in some MLS areas. The inventory also appears to be peaking but this may just be seasonal.

The numbers for MLS 520 West Bellevue are distorted since they it includes a larger waterfront that closed for almost $10,000,000. This home sold very quickly. Estate quality very high end homes seem to be in demand.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 11-8-10

Weekly Scorecard 11-1-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 00:33:16 +0000

This will sound like a broken record but again this week a pretty high number of closed sales and a relatively low number of pending sales. At some point in time these numbers need to converge. Also inventories are declining as well as sales volumes. This is pretty normal for this time of year no matter what the market conditions. However if you are a buyer this time of year can be a pretty good time to buy. If the seller is motivated the reduced showing traffic and sales volumes can work in your favor. Also on bank owned properties there is a lot of motivation to book sales by the end of the year. After the year there is less motivation as they will do their asset review. Aged listings are the best opportunities with aged short sales and bank listings probably presenting the best value opportunities.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 11-1-10

Weekly Scorecard 10-25-10

George Thurtle — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:09:59 +0000

The gap between pendings sales and sold homes looks to be see sawing. In the last couple of weeks the pending sales looked to be surging. However the pending sales for South Bellevue were pretty good at 11 this week. Overall sales volume appear to be gradually rising in this post tax credit real estate market.

The other issue which does not show in the spreadsheet is the volume of the upper end closings. West Bellevue had another waterfront close and and a Lochwood Lozier for over $2,000,000. Also the amount of bank inventory in the both the pendings and the closings appears to be declining as a percetage of those numbers.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 10-25-10