During a time of year that typically sees a noticeable slow down, houses are still selling at a blistering pace with the average house selling within 22 days of hitting the market. This is up from the 15 days houses were selling within over the summer.
Largely fueled by a lack of supply (down 5.9% over the last six weeks and 21% year-over-year), a third of pending sales (30%) were under contract within a week, up 2.2% from a month earlier. 46% of homes sold within two weeks.
“During the pandemic, a lot of my sellers were trying to get out of Seattle and take their equity to a lower priced market,” said Redfin listing agent David Palmer [1]. “Most sellers who are on the market now are very motivated to move: landlords with vacant homes, families who already upgraded and need to sell their previous homes, couples splitting up. As homebuying demand declines into the fall, I’m only encouraging people who have urgency to sell now. Otherwise, I’m advising them to wait until the new year.”
The report, authored by Redfin Analyst Tim Ellis [2], also found:
- The median home-sale price increased 13% year over year to $355,600.
- Asking prices of newly listed homes were up 12% from the same time a year ago to a median of $362,047, down 0.7% from the all-time high set during the previous four-week period ending October 3 as sellers began to back down from the record-high asking prices seen in September.
- Pending home sales were up 4% year over year, and up 46% compared to the same period in 2019.
- New listings of homes for sale were down 8% from a year earlier. New listings remained positive compared to 2019, up 5%.
- 46% of homes sold above list price, up from 34% a year earlier, but the smallest share since April.
- On average, 5.1% of homes for sale each week had a price drop, up 1.4 percentage points from the same time in 2020, and the highest level since the four-week period ending October 13, 2019.
- The average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, decreased to 100.7%, the lowest level since April. In other words, the average home sold for 0.7% above its asking price.
- Mortgage purchase applications increased 2% week over week (seasonally adjusted) during the week ending October 8. For the week ending October 7, 30-year mortgage rates fell slightly to 2.99%.