Long time Ballard resident and local Real Estate Broker Sharon Giampietro shares a post on My Ballard every 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 in October below:
October saw 194 new residential listings added in our area, similar to August’s 196 but far below the 267 added in September. Most Real Estate Brokers would attribute this to the holiday season slowdown.
As we shift further into the fall, sellers continue to list their homes, but the numbers are shrinking. Nonetheless, if you are looking for a home- keep it up! There will be transactions going on almost every day through December 31, some with those motivated sellers who want a sale by the end of the year.
October saw another drop in the average home price for area 705. September’s average sale price of $579,000 dropped to $553,000 in October, representing a 4.5 % dip. Nonetheless, home prices, so far, for all of 2014 have risen about 12% and in all of 2013 they rose about 10%.
The average sale price for October 2014 is 5% over the average price in October 2013, underscoring an overall upward price trend despite month by month fluctuations. Part of the reason for this is the still relatively low number of listings compared to the number of buyers who want to live in our area. For example, in the month of October, 196 homes came on the market and 217 sold. This means that in one month a big chunk of what is available to sell, sold. Just over a month’s supply of inventory does not give buyers a huge selection.
Recently, the Washington State Employment Security Dept. reported that the state’s unemployment rate for September 2014 is was 5.7 percent and August’s was 5.6 percent. Low unemployment helps to fuel the housing industry.
Condos continue to be an important option for buyers. In October, 36 condos were added to the inventory, not a big change from September’s 43. Prices for condos were also down at an average of sale price of $286,000, down from $302,000 last month. As the new construction condo units are finishing and sales on them are closed, we can expect to see a rise in condo prices.
Residential new construction homes added to the inventory was down to 29 from September’s 40 and only 1 new construction condo listing was added. Many buyers like new construction and are welcoming these modern homes to the pool of alternatives.
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 do not include new construction. Statistics not compiled or published by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
