Are there any silver linings for the Thurston County home buyer? Yes, new data show
The Thurston County housing data released for May looks pretty familiar: sales and median price rose, and inventory inched a bit higher as well, according to Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
However, 'Seattle-area homebuyers had 'more negotiation power in May than any May on record going back to 2018,' Zillow senior economist Kara Ng told The Seattle Times.
So, did negotiation power for buyers in Thurston County also improve?
There's some indication of that, said Mitch Dietz, the owner of Coldwell Banker Evergreen Olympic Realty of Olympia. His real estate business tracks its own data. They haven't crunched the May numbers just yet, but he said their April data might be encouraging for buyers.
Eighty-three homes went under contract at his office in April, Dietz said.
Of those total pending sales:
▪ A majority of them — 81% — either received a full price offer or an offer below list price. Only 19% of the offers were above the list price.
▪ The seller paid the closing costs in 23% of those deals.
▪ Cash offers represented about 18% of the pending transactions. That number has been right around 20% in recent months, he said.
The other glimmer of hope for buyers is that inventory in Thurston County rose above two months in May, the Northwest MLS data show.
But Dietz said don't get too excited by that number because it is still a sellers' market. A balanced market that doesn't favor either buyers or sellers has four months of inventory, while at six months it shifts to a buyers' market, he said.
For the county to return to a market that favors the buyer, it would require about three times the current inventory, or about 1,800 active listings.
Thurston County has been in a sellers' market since October 2014, he said.
There also has been national real estate news suggesting there are more sellers than buyers. That is not the case here, Dietz said.
The county housing market rarely reflects national trends — the exception would be the financial crisis of 2008 — because the county has a stable economy (state workers, Joint Base Lewis-McChord) and an influx of people who want to live here, Dietz said.
As a result, that steady demand, combined with low inventory, means median price continues to go up. It rose more than 7% to $547,000 in May, compared to May 2024, Northwest MLS data show.
Combine that with mortgage interest rates of about 7% and it's still an expensive place to buy a home, he said.
'Buy now and refinance later if you can afford it,' said Dietz, because if rates fall, the market heats up and pushes prices higher.
▪ Single-family home sales rose 5.37% to 314 units last month from 298 units in May 2024.
▪ Single-family home median price rose 7.25% to $547,000 from $510,000 over the same period.
▪ Single-family home pending sales rose 1.67% to 426 units from 416 units over the same period.
▪ Condo sales rose to 16 units from 15 units over the same period.
▪ Condo median price was unchanged at $315,000 over the same period.
▪ Condo pending sales rose to 24 units from 17 units over the same period.
Source: Northwest MLS.
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