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Northwest Multiple Listing Service:
Scarce inventory, new rules for mortgage closings and affordability concerns will likely slow home sales around Western Washington during the remaining months of 2015 and into early 2016, according to spokespersons from Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
The latest statistics from the MLS show a double-digit drop in inventory, a double-digit jump in closed sales, and a near double-digit increase in prices from a year ago, prompting one industry leader to say the trends aren’t sustainable. “We simply can’t sustain double-digit increases in sales when inventory levels continue to drop every month,” remarked OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate. “We’re on the cusp of a housing market slowdown,” he predicts.
Northwest MLS director Darin Stenvers also expects a slowdown, pointing to new rules for mortgage closings and rising interest rates as culprits.
“With the introduction of the new TRID(1) banking and closing disclosure requirements we will see longer closing timeframes for the foreseeable future. This will lead to a slowdown in closings and thus may slow the market until early or mid-2016,” explained Stenvers, the office managing broker at John L. Scott in Bellingham. Layoffs and the possibility of higher interest rates result in unpredictability for both buyers and sellers, he suggested.
Despite an expected slowdown, closed sales through the first nine months of this year are running 16.6 percent ahead of the same period a year ago, with median prices up 9.2 percent.
The MLS report for September shows pending sales continue to outnumber new listings, resulting in inventory declines in most of the 23 counties in its service area. That imbalance leads to rising prices.
Northwest MLS members reported 9,574 pending sales (mutually accepted offers) in September for a 7.9 percent increase from the year-ago figure of 8,875. Compared to August, pending sales fell 9.7 percent.
Closed sales jumped 17.5 percent, with year-over-year sales rising from 7,020 finished transactions to 8,245. Twenty of the 23 counties reported double-digit gains from a year ago.
Prices showed more variation. Area-wide, the median price on last month’s closed sales of single family homes and condos was $312,000. That’s up nearly 9.5 percent from the year-ago figure of $285,000, but down slightly from August.
