Bellevue Real Estate » sold

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

Weekly Scorecard 10-4-10

George Thurtle — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:28:18 +0000

Still trying to get caught up. This one is one week behind but does give an idea of the continuing trends. The closed sales are still high compared to the pending sales but the pending sales seem to be picking up. Probably in a couple of months these numbers will be coming closer together. This is a reversal of the past where the pending sales were almost twice the closed sales but the pending numbers were very unreliable given that a number of them were short sales and eventually fails to close. The most impoartant fact of these numbers is that the pending sales seem much more reliable. Also as noted in the foreclsure report it appears that many more short sales are closing successfully as indicated by the overall falling amount of distressed inventory and the rapidly declining notice of trustee sales.

My antidotal experience I am seeing presently is that some short sales are being processed in less than 60 days. Even those with second mortgages in place.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 10-4-10

Weekly Scorecard 9-27-10

George Thurtle — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:04:05 +0000

Still getting caught up. The same trends as the last few weeks continue; pretty good numbers for the clsoed sales but weaker numbers for the pending sales. The big news though is that in West Bellevue we are seeing some big numbers. Another large water front closed along with two more homes either side of $3,000,000 these were not distressed sales sales. No short sales or banked owned properties. It appears that better properties in good condition that have specialty appeal are strting to move. If someone wants a nice home or special piece of property they are going to have to pay for it. As we have discussed previously a lot of the new construction and other upper end distressed property was cleaned out last year. Now if you have money and want a nice piece of property in many cases buyers are now having to deal with sellers that may be as strong financially as they are.

Here is the spreadsheet: Weekly scorecard 9-27-10

Weekly Scorecard 7-19-10

George Thurtle — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:46:44 +0000

Inventories appear to have peaked but the sales keep occuring at a pretty good clip. What is especially notable this week is the number of sales over $1,000,000. East Bellevue had a closing over a $1,000,000 on a resale home this is a first in over a year. West Bellevue had 10 closed sales; of those sales 5 were over a million. There was a waterfront that went for $5,000,000 and a new construction home in West Bellevue went for over $3,000,000. All of these sales were arms length sales and were not short sales or bank owned properties. It is evident that the market is looking for luxury homes and there is very little new construction to fill the gap. The buyer’s choice is either to pay up or build a custom home.The average per sq. ft. price in West Bellevue has been over $400 three weeks out of the last four. This is a trend given the recent sales in my opinion. South Bellevue also had a couple of sales over a $1,000,000 although its per sq. ft. prices seem stuck but the average sale price are moving up. It is very evident the more expensive homes are starting to move.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 7-19-10

Weekly Scorecard 7-12-10

George Thurtle — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:18:25 +0000

The story this week is two fold. Inventories keep gradually rising. However the big story is that ratio of closed saled to pending sales has equalized. If you were checking weeks prior you will remember while the closed sales number were pretty good the pending sale numbers were pretty low. The expiration of the tax credit seem to be the reason with a rush to get a home under contract prior to the April 30th expiration date. While in many price ranges on the Eastside the tax credit was not applicable to many buyers the market did seem to go somewhat in sympathy to it. Well this week the sale numbers were pretty good and the pending sale numbers were almost up there with the actual closed sales. We should be getting beyond the time period the tax credit has influenced the market and will get to see what the real underlying demand is in the next few weeks.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 7-12-10

Weekly Scorecard 7-5-10

George Thurtle — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:09:28 +0000

A week of contrast. Some of the highest closed sale numbers and some of the lowest pending sale numbers. The general accepted wisdom is that the expiration of the Federal Tax credits were the reason and in part I am sure this is true. However areas such as West Bellevue which is not tax credit dependent had 11 closed sales of which two were waterfront homes. One over $3,000,000 and the other over $4,000,000. But the number of pending sales this week for West Bellevue was “0″. This probably is the best example of the contrast. East Bellevue saw 21 closed sales this week. This was the last week you could close home sales and receive the tax credit. There was a last minute extension to allow sales which were written by April 30th to close by the end of August but in general the public perceived June 30th as the cut off date. As a result I think a number of these sales were driven by the tax credit expiration. In the same week there were only four new pending sales. The interesting issue with two of those pending sales is they were new construction presales. Also in area 500 there were new construction presales also. It appears the new construction inventory is depleting and that new homes are only being built on a presale basis due to financing and risk considerations by the builders.

Overall the character of the inventory of the market is changing with most of the new inventory sold out and some of the better resales having been sold. It appears the inventory is splitting between the really lousy bank stuff and better maintained homes. However the sellers of the better maintained homes which are not short sales or distressed property may pull their houses off of the market later in the fall as they find there is no pricing power. There will be a post on the changing character of the inventory and the market in the coming few months.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 7-5-10

Weekly Scorecard 6-14-10

George Thurtle — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:54:23 +0000

The numbers for the week shows a spread between the pending sales and the sold numbers to be about 50%; with the sold numbers being higher. This shows a slowing of volumes post tax credit. What something like a short term tax credit does is “borrow” buyers from the future and it takes a few months for the market to get back into a normal equilibrium after the expiration of the incentives. I suspect about September or even August we will be seeing what the true underlying market demand is. However sales do continue to happen and pricing appears stabile with average sold per sq. ft. price being roughly on par with the pending per sq. ft. price. When the market was diving in the winter of 2009 you would see the pending per sq. ft. pricing lower than the average per sq. ft. sold. This is not the case now and I suspect this real estate market in the next couple of months will have adjusted to the new economics.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 6-13-10

Weekly Scorecard 6-7-10

George Thurtle — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:18:51 +0000

Things appear to be marching along in this post tax credit real estate market. Inventory levels which were building in the last couple of months have peaked and held steady. Will probably decline in July if the traditional market cycles restore themselves. The closed sold homes peaked last week which would be expected given the last minute tax credit rush. Sale volumes have fallen to a lower level as indicated by the pending sales but the sales do appear to be steady. Prcing also looks to be steady there is no trend line up but also no real indication of the prices falling post tax credit. Seems like the low interest rates are keeping the market moving ahead in slow but steady manner.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 6-7-10

Weekly Scorecard 5-17-10

George Thurtle — Fri, 21 May 2010 03:17:31 +0000

Well it is a double this week. Since I was out of town last week I didn’t do the report so I have combined two weeks. There are a coupled trends worth noting. The first is that East Bellevue which had seen inventroy building just saw a drop in inventory over the last couple of weeks. The other Bellevue areas West Bellevue and South Bellevue both saw their inventories continuing to rise. However sales appear strong but the pending sales were down. In general you will see sales starting to decline towards the summer doldrums last year that was not the case but it appears that this maybe occurring. Let’s see what the next couple of weeks bring.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 5-17-10