Bellevue Real Estate » price per sq. ft.

Monthly Numbers

George Thurtle — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 01:37:38 +0000

The monthly numbers for Bellevue are now posted. Inventories are starting to rise a bit, but the sales were also very strong. Prices remain stable. The per sq. ft. sales numbers are very stable. West Bellevue is a little misleading because there were two large waterfront sales in those numbers. If you look at the trend line it is at $300 per sq. ft. for the baseline for west Bellevue. The blips up reflect one time large sales. All of the per sq. ft. sales graphs are very stable. The price averages move around as the size and style of the homes change. When the per sq. ft. prices start moving up it is a sign of appreciation.

Sellers seem to have seen the increased sales volumes and are starting to bring property to the market. It appears that as sales occur more inventory waits in the wings to be brought to the market and the market is in a churning mode.

Here is the link for the Stat: http://eastbellevuere.com/index.php/category/statistics/monthly/

Weekly Scorecard 4-5-10

George Thurtle — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:42:11 +0000

The story this week is that inventories keep creeping up but the sales volumes remain impressive. In surveying the listings, both sold and pending, what the numbers are not showing is the number of listings selling at or higher than the asking price. As we have discussed before if a home has “obvious” value there seems to be no shortage of buyers. What is obvious value? Well the market seems very oriented to the per sq. ft. price and homes in good condition that are under the average per sq. ft. price seems to go very quickly and in some cases are bid up over the asking price. How do you find this price? Go to the monthly stats on this blog and click on “Monthly” and find the per sq. ft. price graph. That is the prevailing per sq. ft. price. Listings priced at or under that number for the maket area that you are interested in seem to be moving. There looks to be no shortage of buyers but they are demanding a good deal. This is keeping prices flat.

However a look at the Altos research graphs shows the decline in inventories and the pricing graphs which were falling appear to be bottoming and in some cases turing up slightly. Local home owners have noticed that houses have sold and are bringing inventory to the market but the inventory being brought to the market is at higher prices than buyers seem to want to pay. Let’s see how this tug of way plays out.

Here is the spreadsheet: Weekly scorecard 4-5-10

Weekly Scorecard 9-14-09

George Thurtle — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:28:11 +0000

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.

May Statistics

George Thurtle — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:19:07 +0000

The numbers from Trendgraphix are in for May and overall the market has seen increses in both prices and volumes. West Bellevue saw its average home sale price rise 37% from March to May from $885,000 to $1,212,000. East Bellevue saw its average price rise from $477,000 to $535,000. Traditionally East Bellevue is less prone to the large swings because of the larger volumes and overall more affordable price average. The other significant news was the reduction of inventories. East Bellevue is now approaching less than 6 months of inventory; this is considered a traditionally stable market. However one key statistic appears stuck and that is the average price per sq. ft. In East Bellevue this number has hovered around $220 per sq. ft. since March and about $300 per sq. ft. for West Bellevue. It appeasrs that what has driven the averges up is a higher proportion of more expensive homes, particularly those over $1,000,000. This is due to “Jumbo” financing coming back into the market. As an example now BofA is offering loan amounts to $1,000,000 with 20% down. What the static per sq. ft. number tells me is that buyers have drawn a line in the sand for what they are willing to pay. In markets that are appreciating the averages move with the per sq. ft. prices. In the graphs for May you will see that per sq. ft. averages moved down with the overall home price averages. In King County and the lower price ranges you are seeing mild upticks to the per sq. ft. averages but they are still lagging compared to the price averages. Buyers are reluctant and only will buy if they see opportunity. If rates keep heading up it could crimp volumes.

The good news is that the market has reached a point that is “quantifiable”, sellers know pretty much where they have to be to sell and buyers are given an indication where other buyers are looking to enter the market. Before it was astab in the dark. If you are a seller I would be careful on my pricing and avoid “irrational exuburence”. If you check the weekly Altos Stats you see that listing inventory is swelling as sellers see homes move. This trend plus rising rates will probably keep buyers in their “opportunity” mode. If you are a buyer being overly aggrsive on your offers will probably be counterproductive and you will see the better inventory get picked off while the less desirable inventory will probably keep drifitng downward.

This blog will look to keep you informed and the weekly Altos Stats are a great tool which gives pretty good indiciations of short term trends to base your decisions on.