(The following is an excerpt from the article posted on August 4, 2016. Click here to read the article in its entirety.)
by Marc Stiles, Puget Sound Business Journal
The Puget Sound region’s housing market is still booming and last month recorded its best-ever July, according to a new report that the Northwest Multiple Listing Service issued Thursday.
A severe inventory shortage has resulted in an unbalanced market, but now more houses and condos are being put up for sale.
Throughout the region, the number of new listings increased by 11 percent. The total number of condos and houses on the market at the end of July was around 10,000, down 10.4 percent from July 2015. But that’s better than June, when only about 8,900 houses were on the market.
The rising inventory is spurring sales, especially in outlying areas.
“We are experiencing a record-breaking market,” said J. Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott, Inc. “Last month was the best July in history in the Puget Sound real estate market.” He said that the rising number of homes for sale gave the market the boost to not only be able to claim the best ever July, but to also position the last three months as the best in history for pending sales.
Buyers are looking beyond pricey King and Snohomish counties. Year over year, the number of pending sales was flat in King and up only slightly in Snohomish County, but up about 7 percent in Kitsap and 12.5 percent in Pierce.
Sales action is hotter farther out in Thurston County, where pending sales were up more than 24 percent. Skagit County notched a nearly 18 percent increase.
