Market Trends From Around The Sound: Q3-2022

You may have read headlines about our shifting market: interest rates are up and home sales are down. While that’s true, that simple interpretation of our real estate market is more nuanced, and there are advantages to both sides of a real estate transaction, as long as you have the right real estate advisor by your side. In our quarterly reports, we dig into the numbers to help you decipher what they may mean for achieving your real estate goals. These reports are just the start. A conversation with your global real estate advisor can help you put these numbers in context and what they mean as you approach your real estate goals for 2022, 2023, and beyond.

 

In the second quarter, the median sold price hit seven figures for the first time ever. But nothing gold can stay, as the poem goes, and while the market has cooled, so has the median sold price, to $965K.

 

 

While the median sales price is up 3.5% year over year, the average price per square foot of an Eastside home increased by 6.87%. While gains aren’t as large as what we saw just a few months ago, the market is still showing evidence of appreciation.

 

 

Not only is the median sold price down quarter over quarter, it’s also down year over year. The number of homes sold is down by nearly half year over year, and there are three times as many homes available for sale—still, there are 1.8 months of inventory.

 

 

For sellers, there is good news—the average number of days on market is 15, up from just 10 days in Q3 of 2021, but not even close to the 34 days on average a home spent on the market during the same part of the year in 2020.

 

 

Year-over-year appreciation is steady: the average price per square up is up over 5% from a year ago and the median sold price is up almost 9%.

 

 

(Excluding Bainbridge Island) The market has been shifting, and while the number of homes sold is down from Q3-2021, Kitsap County has seen some of the least of these changes with a less than 20% decrease.

 

 

In King County, homeowners are seeing appreciation, but it’s true that gains are slowing. The buyers that have stayed in the market are more discerning, especially without the threat of a multiple-offer situation on each house.

 

 

The number of Pierce County homes for sale in the third quarter of 2022 is more than double what it was a year before. The number of homes sold is down by almost 30%. And yet, there’s a seller’s market with 1.8 months of inventory.

 

 

The average number of days a home spends on market is up to 22 days—higher than the year before, but not an incredible amount of time, and there’s only 1.9 months of inventory available.