Seattle Region November Home Sales

Seattle-area November home sales downshifted from October, as they normally do, but posted a huge gain over last year's severely low level. The overall median sale price dipped for the second consecutive month as foreclosure resales rose and a greater share of all sales occurred below $300,000, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 3,967 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow during November in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan statistical area encompassing King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. November sales fell 5.9 percent from October but increased 84.2 percent from November 2008, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records.

A decline in sales between October and November is normal for the season. On average, sales have fallen 12.7 percent between those two months over the past 15 years.

Despite the year-over-year surge in transactions, November's sales were the second lowest for that month - behind last year - since 1996, when November sales totaled 3,351.

November's big year-over-year sales jump reflects several factors: First, sales a year ago were unusually low - the lowest for a November since at least 1994, when DataQuick's Seattle region stats begin. Also, the combination of lower home prices and super-low mortgage rates boosted affordability this fall and helped spur sales at a time many were also motivated to buy before a federal homebuyer tax credit might have expired at the end of November. As it turned out, that tax credit was extended and expanded.

Total Seattle-area sales have risen on a year-over-year basis for five consecutive months. Total resales have increased on a year-over-year basis for six months, while sales of newly built homes have increased for two months. New-home sales in November were the highest in 16 months.

November sales of all new and existing homes priced below $300,000 represented 53.8 percent of all sales, up from 51.5 percent in October and up from 47.2 percent a year ago.

At the other end of the home-price spectrum, the share of total sales over $1 million fell to 2.1 percent in November, down from 2.2 percent in October and 2.3 percent a year earlier. A total of 79 new and resale homes sold for $1 million or more in November, down 13.2 percent from 91 in October but up 61.2 percent from 49 in November 2008. Over the past five years, an average of 89 homes sold for $1 million-plus during the month of November. Looking at all months, sales of $1 million-plus homes peaked in June 2007, when 293 sold. During the first 11 months of this year, sales of $1 million-plus homes fell 33.0 percent from the same period last year. The number of $1 million-plus homes sold is based on transactions where there was a price or purchase loan amount of $1 million or more in the public record.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos combined in November was $287,550, down 2.5 percent from $295,000 in October and down 6.9 percent from a year earlier. October's median was 21.3 percent lower than the Seattle area's peak $365,200 median in June 2007. The overall median has fallen on a year-over-year basis for 22 straight months. It reached a high for this year of $300,000 in July, August and September.

The median paid for resale single-family detached houses was $299,950 in November, down insignificantly from $300,000 in October and down 3.9 percent from $309,000 a year earlier.

Another key price measure for resale single-family houses, the median price paid per square foot, fell to $169 in November, down from $173 in October and down 9.9 percent from $187 a year earlier. The November figure was 29.9 percent below the peak $240 median paid per square foot in July 2007. The high for this year was $174, reached in June and August.

In November, foreclosure resales rose in the greater Seattle area: 19.2 percent of all homes resold were houses or condos that had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months, up from 18.6 percent in October and up from 15 percent in November 2008. Foreclosure resales peaked in January this year at 23.9 percent of resales.

The use of government-insured FHA loans, a popular choice among first-time buyers, changed little in November: 39.1 percent of all purchase loans were FHA, down slightly from 40.4 percent in October but up from 26.5 percent a year earlier and up from 3.6 percent two years earlier, according to an analysis of public property records.

Absentee buyers accounted for 11.9 percent of all November home sales - a relatively low percentage in the West. That was down from 13.5 in October and 15.6 percent a year earlier. Absentee buyers include investors and second-home buyers, mainly, as well as others who indicated at the time of sale that they will have their property tax bills sent to a different address.

The use of adjustable-rate mortgages ("ARMs") to buy homes rose in November, to 7.5 percent of all Seattle-area purchase loans. That was up from 5.9 percent in October and up from a decade low of 1.8 percent in May this year. Marking the first year-over-year gain in more than four years, November's 7.5 percent purchase ARM level rose from 7.1 percent a year earlier. However, it was still much lower than the monthly ARM-use average this decade of 32 percent.

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA MSA

Number of sales	Nov-08	Nov-09	%Chng
Resale houses	1,352	2,555	89.00%
Resale condos	317	606	91.20%
New homes	485	806	66.20%
All homes	2,154	3,967	84.20%

Median sale price	Nov-08	Nov-09	%Chng
Resale houses	$312,000	$299,950	-3.90%
Resale condos	$250,000	$246,500	-1.40%
New homes	$341,065	$290,000	-15.00%
All homes	$309,000	$287,550	-6.90%