Washington State Home Sales, Prices Slip in 4Q 2007
SPOKANE, WASHINGTON - February 14, 2008 - Home sales and home prices in Washington slipped in the last quarter of 2007, reflecting the national downturn, the Washington Center for Real Estate Research said Thursday.
Fourth quarter sales were 99,120, down 25.6 percent from sales of 133,220 homes in the same period of 2006, according to the report from the center at Washington State University. Those are seasonally adjusted annual rates.
The sales decline mirrors national averages, but other Western states such as Nevada, California and Arizona suffered even steeper declines, said Glenn Crellin, the center’s director.
The drop was caused by the collapse of subprime mortgage lending and other nontraditional mortgage products, combined with public perception that housing prices were in freefall, the report said.
The median home sales price in Washington during the fourth quarter was $293,900, down 2.5 percent from the final quarter of 2006. That’s the first year-to-year decline since the center began compiling the data in 1994, Crellin said.
Nationally in the fourth quarter, home prices slipped 5.8 percent, and in the West they fell 8.7 percent compared to the year earlier period, according to National Association of Realtors data released Thursday, Crellin said.
Even with the fourth-quarter decline, the statewide median sales price for all of 2007 was $309,600, a 5.4 percent increase over 2006, the report said.
During all of 2007, 120,760 homes were sold in Washington, down 16.1 percent from 143,940 in 2006. That’s the lowest annual home sale total since 2001, the report said.
Six counties - Adams, Chelan, Columbia, Douglas, Walla Walla and Whatcom - recorded more home sales during the fourth quarter than a year ago.
King County, the state’s largest, saw home sales drop 17.4 percent from the third quarter and 28.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006.
Median prices ranged from $110,000 in Adams County to $693,800 in San Juan County. Homes in King County had a median price of $439,000, down 0.2 percent from the fourth quarter a year earlier.
Median home prices jumped the most in Grant County, rising 20.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, to $169,900.
The report also measured the ability of typical families to purchase typical homes, through the Housing Affordability Index. The statewide index stood at 90.5 for the fourth quarter, meaning a family with the median statewide income of $64,030 had a little over 90 percent of the income required to qualify for a mortgage on a home priced at the median of $293,900.
It’s the most affordable that housing has been since the opening months of 2006.
sales of Wash. homes, prices slip in 4th quarter
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS