May 2013 Seattle Condo Update
Seattle’s condo market, which had been on fire since the start of the year, took a little tumble in May with a dip in overall sales value, plateauing activity and rising inventory.
The citywide condo median sales price decreased 3.17% year-over-year, and 9.6% from the prior month, to $260,000. While that reverses nine consecutive months of appreciating sale prices, only two areas of the city actually reflected decreases in value – downtown/Belltown (-18.9%) and Capitol Hill/Central (-4.7%) neighborhoods. The rest of the city continued to exhibit year-over-year median sale price increases with Queen Anne/Magnolia, West Seattle and Northwest Seattle realizing double digit increases (see table below).
Condo sales activity plateaued at 278 units that entered pending status (offers accepted), the same as April, though a 10.6% drop from a year ago. On the other hand, closed condo unit sales increased 4% over last May, and 6.3% over April, to 237 units.
The number of active Seattle condo listings rose 24% to 470 units available last month after remaining relatively stagnant since December. Yet, that is still 21% fewer properties than were available for sale last year. This should help ease buyer demand.
The rising inventory and plateauing sales volume resulted in a slight increase to the citywide inventory supply rate from 1.4 to 1.7-months of supply. The months of supply is the basis used to determine market conditions. With less than 3-months of supply, Seattle’s condo market remains in a robust sellers market environment.
Source: NWMLS. Some figures were independently compiled by SeattleCondosAndLofts.com and were not published by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
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