Q1 2019: A Mix of Sun, Rain and Sales

This spring has been wet. Really wet. More than Seattle wet. We’ve had more than 36 inches of rain here at our house for example. Over the spring, we’ve seen this: when the sun comes out people come out to open houses and when it rains they don’t. It seems simple and straightforward but it’s been the pattern we’ve been seeing this spring. So watch this space next week as this is one of the first sunny and warm weekends we’ve had in a while. 

The weather’s impact has been showing up as certain properties have amassed more days on market than you’d expect but still do well despite being on the market longer. Also, we’ve seen little surges of properties going into contract after a given sunny weekend. 

What we’ve seen this spring: 

• Buyers are out in force but inventory continues to lag
• The quality of inventory has been okay but will May bring the stunners and special properties that folks love?
• When people want a property, they’re throwing down more an earlier but sellers are still holding to offer dates and pushing prices up and up 
• $1,200 is the new $1,000-a-square-foot as 7 neighborhoods now regularly see prices push beyond the $1,000/sqft barrier
• The Lyft IPO went well the 1st day (and declined the next). This brings up a lot of talk about the impact more IPOs will bring (uber, pinterest, slack, etc), but remember, any IPO impact will be sustained over time (if there is anything appreciable) because not everyone can or will cash out their stocks and many of the people who benefit from this windfall have been there and done that and probably bought a nice house last time around. See our thoughts about that here.

Yellow = Average Prices > $1,000/sqft for all property types 

Red = Average Prices > $1,200/sqft for all property types

Source: SFAR MLS Sales Data