Real Estate Market Update - August 2023

Home purchase and sales activity for the greater Seattle-Bellevue area is generally following seasonal market trends in August despite the 30-year mortgage rate surging to its highest level in 22 years to over 7.5%. The quantity of Sold properties (demand) increased almost 5% from July to August after the slowdown from June to July, forecasted last month. However, increasing interest rates and general market uncertainty has dampened the increase in properties going under contract to about a 3% increase this month. There is a lot of uncertainty in the local and global markets in the near term. However, it’s with certainty that I believe the long-term outlook for real estate values in the Puget Sound region will follow an upwards trendline.

The Seller’s market continues as the supply of homes for sale remains at historic +10-year lows, while the pool of ready, willing and able Buyers is larger, albeit also historically low. Nationally, mortgage applications are at 28-year lows.

On August 25th after the interest rate surge, I had a property listed at $975,000 in Seattle go under contract for full price after 1 day on market. The Buyer is relocating from the Midwest to Seattle for a tech sector job. This is another indicator of a robust diverse Seattle-Bellevue economy. My advice to Buyers is not to wait until mortgage interest rates decrease. If they do, there will be a tremendous amount of pent-up Buyer demand released, which will exponentially increase home values. At that point, Buyers will wish they purchased now and refinanced later.

I’m here to help you or someone you know achieve their real estate goals.

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