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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (1030)	11/8/2001 6:59:00 AM
From: nextrade!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Puget Sound, home sales fall for third month, seattletimes.nwsource.com Thursday, November 08, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific By Luke Timmerman Seattle Times business reporter Home sales dropped in the Puget Sound area for the third straight month in October, but prices and number of homes on the market climbed. Last month's home sales showed a 6 percent drop compared with October 2000 in a seven-county region of Western Washington, figures from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service indicate. Those figures cover King, Snohomish, Pierce, Skagit, Kitsap, Mason and Grays Harbor counties. The region's greatest extremes were in King County: Sales fell 11 percent; prices had a relatively weak 3 percent gain; and the number of homes for sale rose 24 percent over October 2000. Those numbers followed a bleak September. King County home sales fell 18 percent that month compared with September 2000, and the National Association of Realtors reported that home sales nationwide dropped 12 percent. With mortgage rates at historic lows, real-estate experts said the balance of power in the market may be shifting. "We've moved from a seller's market into one that's balanced or perhaps even favoring buyers, particularly in higher price ranges," said Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University. Buyers certainly have more to choose from. King County had 11,034 homes for sale in October, compared with 8,887 a year ago — a 24 percent increase. That may make it even harder for sellers during the traditionally slow holiday season. Snohomish County offset some of the downward trend. Its sales were down 5.1 percent last month, and inventories were similar, but median prices were up to $215,000 — a 12.6 percent gain over $191,000 a year ago. In Pierce County, sales were up 6.5 percent, and median home prices were up 6.7 percent, from $149,950 a year ago to $159,950. The key reason for the greater demand in outlying areas is affordability. J. Lennox Scott, president of John L. Scott Real Estate, said an inadequate supply of affordable homes is hurting the economy because affordable homes are needed to spark sales throughout price ranges in King County. There continues to be strong demand for relatively affordable homes in the $200,000 to $250,000 range, Crellin said, and buyers are looking outside King County to find them. How long the demand lasts is unknown because it depends heavily on consumer confidence, which is at its lowest levels in more than seven years. "It's not a bad time to be a homebuyer as long as you're confident your employment is stable," Crellin said. "But that's a psychological barrier for a lot of people as layoff notices are coming out every day."