Welcome to the Market Update for Kirkland- July 2022.
It has been an interesting year so far across all markets. With the rising home values throughout 2021 and into 2022 meeting head on with the continued supply issues, rising gas prices, and rising mortgage rates, we’ve seen many opine about the health of the real estate market and the possibility of a bubble. What we have been seeing is more of a correction, or a return to more normalized levels of buying and selling. Let’s take a closer look.
Median Sales Price – We started off the year with sales prices rising to a peak of $1.88M in February, but prices have been declining since then. July did see a bump over June. But, the prices remain above 2021 prices at the same time. July was still 13% over 2021.
Home Sales – We peaked at 121 sales closing in May and have since declined to 54 in July. At the same time we have seen a steady influx of homes coming on to the market. As of July, the new homes listed outpaced sales by about 290%.
Price per Sqft – This measure is affected by many factors, as you can imagine. The range for this year has spanned $835 in January to $685 in July.
Sales Price/List Price ratio – Throughout all of 2021 we saw the median sales price of homes come in above the listing price until July. With the average mortgage rate never peaking above 3.18% Buyers’ mortgage dollars had more buying power. In March of 2022 is when we started to experience the less than gradual rise in mortgage rates. Consequently, the market had to react with sellers re-adjusting their expectations. As a result, we have seen a noticeable decline in the Sales Price-to-List Price ratio from 122% in February to 99.1% of list price in July.
