Seattle Housing Buzz

Quietly, real estate in Western Washington will be less visible. On April 23rd, the Northwest MLS, a listing service representing companies in 19 counties, will stop uploading its property listings to Realtor.com.

Realtor.com is perhaps the closest thing we have to a national listing database. It’s supported by the hundreds of local MLS’ who provide their listing data to Realtor.com.

So, what does this mean for the average home seller? Less visibility and potentially fewer buyers.

What does this mean for the average home buyer? Well, if you’re already in Washington, it probably has very little impact. Most ‘local’ buyers most likely already use the big company websites such as johnlscott.com or windermere.com to facilitate their online searches.

The move by the NWMLS will impact out-of-state buyers and those looking to relocate to the area the most.

However, individual companies may decide to upload their own listings to Realtor.com. As of April 23, John L. Scott will the be largest real estate company in Washington to provide property listings on Realtor.com. Interestingly, Windermere has long chosen to keep their listings off of Realtor.com.

I’ve compiled 1st quarter and March condo performance numbers for Seattle’s condo market on my Seattle condo blog. The results include citywide and downtown core neighborhood figures.

The condo conversion bill that was given a last chance two weeks ago in the Senate has finally met its end…at least for this legislative session. Supporters of the bill, including both the Senate and House, should use the off season to plan a concerted effort for the next legislative session.

Related SHB Articles:

• Condo Conversion Bill Reprieve
• Compromise Be Damned
• Condo Conversion Makeover

Last Month’ s Pending Sales Surpassed February by 16 Percent

KIRKLAND, Wash. (April 5, 2007) - With warmer temperatures, the residential real estate market seems to be heating up around Western Washington, according to the latest report from Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Figures released today show its members reported 9,340 pending sales of single family homes and condominiums during March, the highest volume since August 2006, when brokers notched 10,022 pending sales.

Inventory continues to rise - and so are prices.

Brokers added 12,073 news listings of single family homes and 2,208 new listings of condominiums to the NWMLS inventory during March, bringing the total number of active listings to 34,463. Even though the selection is almost 1.5 times larger than a year ago when inventory totaled 23,533 listings, both asking and selling prices continue to rise.

NWMLS figures show the median price for sales of single family homes that closed last month across its 19-county market area was $345,000, up more than 13 percent from a year ago. Condominiums that sold and closed last month fetched a median price of $252,000, for an increase of 10.7 percent compared to twelve months ago.

In the four-county Puget Sound region, Snohomish County experienced the sharpest price hikes. The median price for last month’s closed sales of single family homes (excluding condos) was $382,500, up about 16 percent from the same month a year ago; condo prices jumped 25.7 percent, rising from $189,970 to $238,796.

Pending sales area-wide lagged the year-ago total of 10,289 transactions, but compared to February, there were about 1,300 more pending sales (offers made and accepted, but not yet closed) for a 16 percent gain. ”

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