June Seattle Area Home Sale Press Release

Seattle Region June Home Sales

The number of homes sold in the Seattle area held at a six-year high in June amid especially strong condo sales and much higher activity in the middle and upper price ranges. The median sale price climbed to its highest level since fall 2008, erasing more than half of what it lost during the housing downturn, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 5,773 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow during June in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area encompassing King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. June sales fell 1.8 percent from the month before and rose 16.6 percent from a year earlier, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records.

The number of homes sold this June was the highest for that month since June 2007, when 7,255 homes sold. This June's total sales were 6.6 percent lower than the average number of homes sold during all months of June since 1994, when DataQuick's complete Seattle-area statistics begin. Resale single-family house sales were only 0.2 percent below the historical average for June, while condo resales were 28.8 percent above average and sales of newly built homes were 37.3 percent below the June average.

The region's mid- to high-priced neighborhoods continued to post large sales increases, while sales of more affordable homes fell. The number of sales below $200,000 declined 3.1 percent year-over-year, while the number of sub-$150,000 transactions fell 7.4 percent compared with a year earlier. June sales of homes priced above $200,000 rose 28.8 percent year-over-year, while $300,000-plus sales rose 34.2 percent. The number of homes that sold in June between $200,000 and $600,000, a typical move-up range, rose 25.7 percent from a year earlier. Sales over $700,000 rose 48.9 percent year-over-year, though transactions in that price category represented a relatively small portion (9.9 percent) of total sales.

Buyers paid a median $319,000 for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the three-county Seattle area in June - the highest median for any month since October 2008, when the median was $324,000. This June's median rose 0.6 percent from the prior month and increased 10.0 percent from a year earlier. The median has risen on a year-over-year basis for 15 consecutive months, and these annual increases have been double-digit for the past 10 months.

June's median was 12.7 percent lower than the Seattle area's peak $365,200 median in June 2007, and it was 32.9 percent higher than the post-peak trough of $240,000 in January 2012. During the housing downturn the median fell 34.3 percent between the peak and the trough, a decline of $125,200. In June the median was $79,000 above the trough, meaning it has made up well over half of its peak-to-trough decline.

Other Seattle area June highlights (see two charts below)

To view the charts, visit DQNews.com.