Seattle weekly wrap-up: a couple bidding war examples

Bidding wars are back for well-priced, single-family homes. We had a client offer on this Phinney Ridge home that had six offers and this house from last week’s newsletter had five offers. Don’t despair, only 12% of new listings had offer review deadlines and more inventory will be coming, likely starting in March (after the kids’ mid-winter break). We’re telling buyers to be patient and sellers to get their homes on the market ASAP.

The other news this week was interest rates. The fed hiked their rate Wednesday, and as a reminder that mortgage rates move differently, the 30-year fixed actually dropped to 5.99% by end of the day Wednesday, but then the jobs report Wednesday bumped the 30-year back and it ended the week at 6.19%.

As for the usual numbers we report on – Seattle sellers listed 199 homes, up 10% week-over-week and Seattle buyers put 184 homes under contract, up 7% week-over-week. We ended the week with 993 homes for sale, the lowest since we started tracking this number at the end of September 2022 (there were 1900 homes for sale that week!)

This week we were busy listing a great Craftsman-style home on Capitol Hill as well as a townhome with great views in Fremont. Both have been blowing up with showings. We also improved the price on our listing at the Emerald and handed off the keys to the lofty townhome we listed the first week of January that went pending in 8 days. On the blog, we have photos and video of GIS Plaza, a new 16-unit condo in Bellevue, an update on First Light, and our new construction pipeline page is up-to-date.

What new listings caught our eye? A $38m spec home on the north end of Mercer Island. Wow! A $2.6m midcentury in Laurelhurst, one of the first homes in Lake Forest Park, a midcentury on Marine View Drive, and a big midcentury project in Blue Ridge.

Our first home-buying class of the year will be on February 7th, or just hit reply if you want to grab a coffee and chat one-on-one sooner than that.