If you are allergic to data, don’t read this, because it has a lot..:-)
Here’s a snapshot of the past 15 months of real estate activity for the Whidbey Island real estate market from Coupeville to Clinton. It excludes Oak Harbor and Camano Island which are very different markets compared the southern half of Whidbey Island.
The graph below shows the total number of single family homes for sale and sold in the past 15 months. Notice the seasonal nature of sales, with the peak month being August, and the lowest in Feb. As winter turns to spring, the activity will rise again, and hopefully bring a positive year.
What you cannot tell from these charts is the activity by different price segments or “layers”. The most active market is the homes priced under $300K. Two thirds of the total sales in the past 15 months have been under $300K even though they represented only 44% of the total homes listed.
This next chart shows you the total Cumulative Days On Market (CDOM) for the homes that sold, plus the final selling price compared to the original listing price. Notice that the final sales price is in the range of 84-90% of the original listing price. One comment on this. People often take their homes off the market for a while, especially in the winter months. If their home is removed from the market for 90+ days, the statistical data system does not use the previous listing data. This means the data shown below is actually better than reality.
The chart below compares the average list price of homes still for sale, and the average selling price for the homes that sold. This really is another way of depicting how the lower price range (less than $300,000) is the most active segment at this time. Whidbey’s real estate market is tracking the national market in this respect as this is where there is a significant number of distressed (foreclosed and/or short sales) properties. So while the market may seem to be marginally better than in the past 2-3 years (and it is), the activity is primarily in the lower priced homes.
Please contact me or leave a comment if you have any questions, or would like a more refined analysis for your specific property. This data set is revised each month, and I should have another Market Update for you summarizing 2011 sometime between the 10-15th of January 2012.
