With the weather warming up, is Seattle condo market doing the same? The 2nd quarter report has some interesting data with most metrics as soft as last month but one number that suggests things might be starting to turn the corner in Belltown.
1.) Pending condos sales continue to be at the same level for the last three months -- ~40% lower than the same month in 2007.
2.) Total inventory for the month of June in all of Seattle is 18.24% more than June 2007 but that is less than half the overage of previous months' year over year comparisons. For May and April 2008, the total inventory was 43.3% and 42.66% over same period last year.
3.) Total available inventory in Belltown has declined markedly from January's 2008 inventory coming in 79.44% higher January 2007 to June 2008 having 4% fewer listings on the market than June 2007. This is partly due to several new construction projects put on hold by developers waiting to see how the market will be doing and investor owners opting to rent out their units instead of trying to sell them so they can take advantage of the strong rental market. Who would have thought that there would be less of a selection in June 2008 than there was in June 2007?
