Long time Ballard resident and local Real Estate Broker Sharon Giampietro will be sharing a post on My Ballard each month to keep readers informed about the local real estate market. Giampietro comes from a long line of realtors and has lived in Ballard for 30 years. She is currently a Broker at Windermere Real Estate in Greenwood.
Check out Giampietro’s recap of how Greater Ballard fared this month below:
May saw another jump in new residential listings, and buyers are saying “great news!” Month over month, new listings increased from 224 in April, to 278 in May. The number of sales also went up substantially this month- in both March and April, 155 homes sold- in May that number was up to 202. Even though there are more listings and more sales, the end result is a housing inventory that still has below a 1.5 month supply. We continue to be in a seller’s market where they have more control over prices than buyers.
After a dip in March, in May prices crept up again for the second straight month. April saw an average sale price of $533,000 and in May that number was $539,000. Prices have gone up 10% in the first 5 months of this year. For all of 2013, prices went up by roughly this same percentage. A continuing increase in inventory like we saw this month could slow prices, but there is no guarantee of more listings or slowing sale prices. When buyers ponder whether to buy now or wait, it is worth considering this rise of the past six months.
The number of condo listings added to the supply was up from 49 in April to 63 in May. There had been a steady downward trend in condo prices from a high of $347,000 in January down to $266,000, but May saw the average sales price bounce back up to $286,000. In May, the number of condo sales was down just a bit, but the amount of time on the market for condos shortened from April’s 48 days to 38 in May. Like residential housing there continues to be a demand for condos.
Residential new construction homes continued to increase a little over April’s number of 24 with 27 new homes added in May. So far this year 137 new construction homes have been added to the inventory, almost triple the 51 added by this date in 2013. In 2014, these new construction homes have given buyers more home alternatives. The number of new construction condos is still low with only 19 added this year, compared to 5 in all of last year, but new condos are on the horizon.
In May, about 5.5% of “solds” (homes and condos) were short sales or bank owned, down a bit from last month. This source of sometimes lower priced homes continues to be low.
Greater Ballard is Greenwood, Green Lake, Wallingford and other close by neighborhoods identified as “705” in the NWMLS. All residential and condo numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand and unless noted does not include new construction. Statistics not compiled or published by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
