NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

  • Cheaper to buy than to rent in 72% of largest U.S. cities
  • Affordability is at an all time high - In 2010, home payments averaged 13.6% of the median family income. For perspective, that number was over 20% in 2007.
  • 2010 saw $600 million more in home sales than 2009
  • Home loans are currently available with credit scores as low as 500 – Ask us how!
  • Of the nearly 131 million housing units in this country, 112.5 million are occupied. 74.8 million are owned, and that's only dropped by about 30 thousand in the past year. 38 million are rented, but that's up by over a million year over year.
  • New Home Sales reportedly rose 17.5% in December to come in better than expectations.
  • The supply of new homes dropped to 6.9 months and the new homes inventory slid to 190,000, down 66.8% from its 2006 peak and at the lowest level since 1968.
  • The pace of existing home sales is up 38% since July and sales are now only around 5% off the long-term trend, which has been a 5.5 million annual pace.

LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS

  • For the 6,662 condominiums that sold last year in the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) the median price was just under $222,000. Prices ranged from $7,000 for a 1-bedroom condo at Copalis Beach in Grays Harbor County to nearly $7.2 million for a 2-bedroom condo in the Four Seasons Private Residences, a downtown Seattle high rise.
  • During 2010, the NWMLS reported 987 sales that commanded $1 million or more, an increase of about 23 percent from the previous year when there were 802 such sales. (In addition, 83 condominiums sold for $1 million or more.)
  • The median sales price of $375,000 for a single family home that sold last year in King County is up almost $100,000 since 2002, a gain of nearly 35 percent.