Are you ready to embrace the newness of 2025 and take on your real estate goals? With higher-than-anticipated mortgage rates, a change in the administration, home prices on the rise, and inventory levels still lower than buyers would hope to see, you may be wondering if now is indeed the right time to make your move. I can assure you that with the right strategies and guidance from a trusted advisor, you can still make a remarkable sale or find your dream home. A mortgage can always be refinanced down the road, so don’t let that stop you from achieving those real estate New Year’s resolutions. As for inventory levels, we’re still seeing some seller hesitation to list their homes and forgo their current rate, but without the frenzied buyer competition we witnessed a few years ago, buyers can take their time searching for their ideal homes.
With January quickly approaching its end, we’re just a couple of months away from the busy spring selling season, when real estate market activity picks up. Now is an excellent time to set the groundwork for your buying or selling goals, so let’s take a look back at the insightful data from Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty’s recently released report and dive into the most important Q4 data.
King County remained a desirable area to both list and purchase property, despite the market obstacles of 2024. When we examine the Q4-2024 data, we see that home sales spiked year over year by 25.36%, increasing from 3,671 to 4,602 homes sold. There was more inventory on the market as well, with 1,596 homes for sale in Q4-2024 compared to 1,348 homes in Q4-2023. However, even with more listings, it remained a seller’s market with just 1 month of inventory.
If we zero in on the Seattle area, we see that there was also a spike in buyer activity, despite the fourth quarter typically proving to be a slower time of the year (due to the holiday/winter season). The number of homes sold increased by 29.69% year over year from 916 homes in Q4-2023 to 1,188 homes in Q4-2024. The Seattle market saw price growth both in median sales price and average price per square foot—with the former increasing by 8.15% to $995,000 and the latter increasing by 3.53% to $557.
As more and more previously remote workers transition to in-office schedules as companies, such as Amazon, increasingly require, a resurgence to in-city living is expected. Get ahead of the curve and purchase your Seattle home sooner rather than later. Each buyer or seller requires a different approach, and I’d be happy to discuss your unique real estate goals and how we can utilize the current market conditions to your advantage with my personalized guidance. Please reach out to me today for more information on a specific neighborhood’s market data or how we can take the first steps toward your 2025 goals together.