Seattle single-family November market report: median price dips again

The numbers for what the Seattle single-family and townhome real estate market did in November are out. Bad news for buyers, good news for sellers, the median price dipped to $825,000 but it is still well below the $893,500 high we saw in May of this year.

Typically prices peak in the spring/early summer and cool off in the back half of the year. And of course, while the median price is down, our experience writing offers day in and day out is that the market is still very competitive for good homes. In the past week we’ve heard of two instances of homes with 20+ offers.

Our advice to buyers is that, depending on what you’re looking for, you may get a better deal now than in the spring/early summer of 2022. Though if you’re looking for what many would consider a nice, move-in-ready house, you’re likely to be frustrated with a lack of options and when something does come up it, it may be more competitive than the spring as there are many buyers focused on fewer listings.

Our advice to sellers is that if you have a move-in-ready great house, is that it is now too late to sell this year and you should focus on listing early 2022.

Here’s a deep dive into all the numbers…

Like median price the median dollars per square foot, is also down.

Buyers put 749 homes under contract in November which is a lot less than the 1,152 we saw in May but was busier than a typical November. For instance November 2019 we saw 590 homes go under contract.

The last few years the median days on market jumps up in the fall as buyers get distracted with back-to-school and then the holidays, but not this year. Homes moved quickly in November.

Sellers slowed down in November, we only saw 543 new listings which is typical for what we see in November.

At the end of November, there were only 350 homes for sale in Seattle which historically is very few. It will be interesting to see how many are for sale at the end of December…

Months of supply is a measure of how long it’d take to sell all the homes for sale. It is now very low! It’d take less than a half of a month to sell all the homes for sale.