Eastside Single-Family March market : median sales price hits all-time high…again

Last month when we were writing the February report, we were keeping an eye on March. 700 new listings hit the market every year for the last 10 years in March. We were watching the number of new listings hoping an influx of new listings would help calm the market and keep home prices from soaring. Well, one of those two things happened – March saw 750 new single family homes hit the market but median sales price jumped to a new eye-popping high as well.

Median sales price hit $1,410,000 in March. This 10% year-over-year jump and 6% jump just in median sales price is being driven by the inventory drought and buyers looking for more space for the work-from-home balancing act we’re all doing right now. Just about every home hitting the market is seeing multiple offers causing homes to sell at another all-time high of 110% of list price and spend an all-time low 5 days on the market.

As we head deeper into April and into the spring and summer season, buyers are going to continue to have it tough. We ended March with only 180 single family homes still for sale across the entire Eastside – that’s not a lot of carry-over into April. In pre-pandemic years, we’d also normally see a slight dip in new inventory in April before a big jump in May due to school breaks being staggered across the middle of the month. I’m expecting more of the same this April but maybe even a sharper dip in new listings as the market finds it way back from last year.

It continues to be a crazy seller’s market. I expect that there are still a large number of sellers on the sidelines waiting to see if other sellers come on the market as they’re concerned about finding and affording their next home to buy. However, if you’re worried about finding a buyer…don’t! There are armies of buyers checking new listings every day!