For most of the country and specifically the Seattle / King County area home sales have been down due to the low inventory level available to home buyers. But here is W. Seattle we actually had an increase in the number of sales for single family residence homes. In 2014, there were 1752 homes sold and 2015 saw sales of 1908. We experienced a growth increase of 8.2% housing units sold.
Buyer demand for housing has definitely pushed the selling prices of homes up again. In West Seattle, the average sales price of single family residences increased from roughly $439,000 to $492,000; an increase of 12.1%. A typical $400,000 home would have measured a $48,400 increase in equality value in one year.
As we roll into 2016, buyer demand is still extremely high and available homes to purchase are still low by historical standards. A 4-6 month supply of homes is considered a balanced market; an ample supply for the demand that all currently active homes would sell in 4-6 months at the current rate of sale. We are still below a one month supply of homes making the current selling conditions very favorable to sellers. This imbalance is considered to continue through out the rest of 2016.
New construction is on the rise throughout the area, but will still lag far behind demand. Most of the imbalanced is caused by home owners not selling as they would typically do for normal life events. This is mainly out of fear of not being able to easily make the purchase they wish to because demand is so high.