The law of supply and demand caught up with Snohomish County’s real estate market in March.
The number of homes available on the market plummeted in February, but prices increased only a ho-hum 2.7 percent.
That corrected itself last month.
Home prices jumped 14 percent in March compared with March 2015, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
The median prices for closed sales of all homes was $365,000 in March, compared with $320,000 for the same month in 2015, according to the report. Single-family houses sold for $385,000, up from $340,000 a year ago. Condos sold for $275,000, up from $240,000.
Listings can receive as many as 20 offers, Diedre Haines, principal managing broker-South Snohomish County for Coldwell Banker Bain, said in a news release.
“The market continues at a breakneck pace,” she said.
The reason is the lack of inventory, which has been a problem plaguing the housing market in the Puget Sound area for months.
Snohomish County has only 1.1 months of inventory on the market. That’s how many months it would take to sell the current inventory of homes given the current pace of home sales.
To put it another way, there were 1,780 homes on the market in Snohomish County in March 2015. Last month, there were 1,267 homes, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. That’s a 28.8 percent decrease year over year.
And that has led to a decrease in the number of pending sales in Snohomish County and the Puget Sound region. For the four-county Puget Sound region, pending sales were down about 6 percent.
“It’s not for any other reason except there aren’t enough homes coming on the market to satisfy pent-up buyer demand,” J. Lennox Scott said in the release.
MLS director George Moorhead said that he’s hearing almost daily conversations around two topics: the possibility of rising interest rates and a near-term real estate correction.
He also said in the release that he’s hearing comments about loan programs with zero down or no income qualification, akin to programs blamed for the 2008 crash.
“It is refreshing to hear such comments as it shows people in the market, both buyers and sellers are more in tune with trends” he said, adding that suggests people more poised to make better financial decisions.
Haines said she is not yet worried about a bubble in Snohomish County. Areas in north and northwest Snohomish County and some pockets in the southern part of the county still have homes still underwater from the recession. She added that they’re nearly out.
An uptick in new construction around Snohomish County is expected to continue, Haines said.
“This would certainly help stabilize the market so appreciation can return to more ‘healthy’ escalation or normal levels,” she said.
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