Are home prices coming down?

I told you so…

May 13, 2022
Gerhard Ade on Instagram

Are we seeing👀 the beginning of a downward📉 shift in pricing? The number of 🏡homes with reduced ⏬listing prices has grown over the past five weeks.

May 27, 2022
Redfin CEO on CNBC’s Closing Bell

Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman has read the tea leaves, and according to him, the tides may finally be turning in homebuyers’ favor after two years of record-shattering home price growth.

May 31, 2022
The Daily Mail

Is the housing boom about to bust? Sellers are slashing prices at levels not seen since before the pandemic amid a rapidly cooling market as the hedge fund manager of The Big Short fame warns ‘It’s like watching a plane crash’.

Follow me on Instagram

For 164 consecutive weeks, I have posted on Instagram the “Seattle Eastside Pulse.”

This three-week Seattle Eastside Listing Pulse consists of single-family homes priced between💰 $500 thousand and $5 million –  located in Bellevue, Bothell, Issaquah, Kirkland, Sammamish, and Woodinville. The 5️⃣ five bars (see below) represent active, reduced, pending, sold and canceled listings. 

Those who follow me on Instagram could see the change in the market coming. Here is what I posted over the past three Fridays. I pointed to the increasing number of price reductions starting on May 13.

May 13

As it has been for the past 11 weeks, the number of active listings ⬆️ was up once again.  Today it finished again at over 300 homes for the past 7 days.  Even with this extended 📈trend, the numbers are still nothing like we expect to see from a normal spring 🏞market.

Are we seeing👀 the beginning of a downward📉 shift in pricing? The number of 🏡homes with reduced ⏬listing prices has grown over the past five weeks.

May 20

As it has been for the past 11 weeks, the number of active listings ⬆️ was up once again.  Today it finished again at over 300 homes for the past 7 days.  Even with this extended 📈trend, the numbers are still nothing like we expect to see from a normal spring 🏞market.

Are we seeing👀 the beginning of a downward📉 shift in pricing? The number of 🏡homes with reduced ⏬listing prices has grown over the past six weeks.

May 27

After 11 consecutive weeks of growing listings results, this week the new listings finished substantially 📉 lower.

As we’ve been predicting, the bigger story is that the market is turning.  Price reductions are happening much more frequently.

Price reductions⏬, measured as a percentage of new listings, were 68% last week. That’s 40% ⬆️more than the previous week.

Listings down, price reductions up.

Eleven consecutive weeks – until May 20th – in the number of new active listings seemed to spell relief of the low housing inventory. In my opinion, it instead reflected the sellers who were late to the party. These sellers were, in some cases not only in a hurry to sell but some of them overpriced their listings.

They unwittingly contributed to the trend for price reductions which were mostly driven by increasing mortgage interest rates. Then, suddenly, as these new listings sold, many after price reductions, and the inventory of homes collapsed.

Keeping my finger on the pulse

Nothing can replace observing the local real estate market every day. I do this because real estate is my business. The market will cool, home prices come down, and then they will go up again. In 2008, during the mortgage crisis, the bottom fell out. The market came back slowly and anyone who bought in 2014, realized an unprecedented rise in equity since then.

In these uncertain 🤨 times, it is more important than ever to stay informed. All you have to do is subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on Instagram. @reseattles