Eastside Condo March market: don’t call it a comeback…
We’re not totally ready to say the Eastside condo market is back in action but the market data from March is pointing in a positive direction for buyers. New listings have climbed steadily over the first three months of the year. In March, 300 new condos were listed for sale, slightly above the pre-pandemic count of 295 new listings in March 2019. This was also a 20% increase over February.
Concurrently, we’ve seen more demand for condos on the Eastside as judged by the amount of time they’re spending on the market. For the second month in a row, days on market for condos dropped in March to just 6 days. This is a big improvement over the start of the year when condos were sitting on the market for nearly a month (28 days).
Median sales price also increased in March to $580,000, a 10% increase over February. Price per square foot increased to an all-time high of $483 per square foot. Interestingly enough, this has not been driven by sales of new construction luxury units as new listings and closed sales for new construction were down slightly month-over-month.
March wrapped up with 248 closed sales, which is an all-time high for the month of March on the Eastside. Pending condo sales also hit an all-time high with 301 pending sales at the end of the month. This is likely due to the mini-dip in price at the beginning of the year causing a large number of units to get snatched up before prices increased. What this doesn’t tell us is if those units sold above or below what the sellers paid. My guess is below what they paid!
My prediction for the Eastside condo market is that we’ll see slightly fewer new listings in April. Historically there’s always a slight dip but let’s hope we avoid the big dip of last year when the pandemic gripped the country. Outside of a slight pull back in new listings, rising prices should mean more sellers will be interested in listing around May or June. However, it’s still a good time to be a buyer as inventory is trending back towards pre-pandemic highs!
