Seattle Area Real Estate in December: Sales Down 20% YoY, Inventory up 169% YoY

The Northwest Multiple Listing Service reported Attentive home buyers can find "good values and receptive sellers"

December brought few surprises for real estate brokers in Western Washington with holidays, fluctuating interest rates, and volatility in consumer confidence contributing to slower activity. Several leaders from Northwest Multiple Listing Service described 2018 as a transition year for residential real estate.

New data from the MLS show inventory in its 23-county market area dipped below two months of supply for the first time since July. A year-over-year comparison of the number of new listings, pending sales, and closed sales show drops overall, while prices rose from the same month a year ago.

Member-brokers added 3,631 new listings of single family homes and condominiums during December (10.4 percent fewer than a year ago), boosting total active listings to 12,275, up from the year-ago volume of 8,553. Pending sales were down about 8.4 percent from twelve months ago (5,677 versus 6,198), and the volume of closed sales dropped nearly 16.6 percent (6,374 versus 7,642).

For 2018, members of Northwest MLS reported completing 92,555 transactions, which compares with 99,345 closed sales during 2017 for a drop of about 6.8 percent. The median price on last year's closed sales of single family homes and condominiums combined was $402,000, up $32,000 (8.64 percent) from 2017.
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The 12,275 active listings in the MLS database at year end was down from November when inventory totaled 15,830 properties, and down from 2018's peak of 19,526 listings at the end of September. Measured another way, there was 1.93 months of supply at the end of December, with four-to-six months typically considered to be a balanced market. A year ago there was only 1.12 months of supply. On a percentage basis, year-over-year inventory has climbed each month since May.
emphasis added

The press release is for the Northwest. In King County, sales were down 19.5% year-over-year, and active inventory was up 169% year-over-year. This is another market with inventory increasing sharply year-over-year, but months-of-supply in King County is still on the low side at 1.7 months.