The real estate market’s seasonal slowdown has begun, as evidenced by the October-to-November decrease of active listings by 15.1%, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service said today in releasing November 2024 housing statistics for the 26 counties it covers, mostly in Western Washington.
However, the market showed improvement year-over-year, with a 23.4% increase in active listings and an increase of 24.7% in closed sales last month compared to November 2023, NWMLS said. Pierce and Thurston counties both posted double-digit percentage increases in total active listings and pending sales from a year ago. Pierce County also saw a double-digit rise in closed sales, while Thurston County was up 6.3%.
Potential buyers still face higher prices, though. While the median sales price for single-family homes and condominiums combined for the 26 counties decreased 0.8% from October to November, it increased 7.3% from a year ago, to $645,000. Pierce and Thurston counties posted increases of 5.3% and 1.5%, respectively, from November 2023.
Pierce County’s median sales price for homes and condos combined was $557,671; Thurston County’s was $522,500.
Steven Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington, sees reasons for optimism based on recent developments in the Washington Legislature intended to promote production of more housing and thereby lower prices, NWMLS said. Among new laws taking effect in the next couple years will be an increase to density in residential areas and promotion of accessory dwelling units, or ADUs.
“It will take time for these new laws to actually produce new housing,” Bourassa said in the NWMLS report, “but the expectation is that they will help in an important way to moderate the cost of homeownership.”
Meanwhile, the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for the week ended Nov. 27 was 6.81%, down from 6.84% the week before, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. A year ago, the rate was 7.22%. Three years ago, at roughly the same date, it was 3.10%.
The South Sound pricing picture was more mixed when looking at single-family homes only.
In Pierce County, the median sales price of single-family homes was $565,000 in November, up 4.6% from November 2023; but in Thurston County, the single-family median fell 0.9% to $525,000.
Other South Sound counties also were mixed in single-family median sales price hikes and declines versus last year
Those included Kitsap, $557,000, up 1.3%; Mason, $432,500, up 6.8%; Grays Harbor, $354,000, down 2.3%; Lewis, $448,000, up 12%; and Jefferson, $665,750, down 6.7%.
Condo prices in Pierce County posted a median of $390,000, down 0.8%. In Thurston County, the condo median was $335,000, down 8.7%.
