Redfin Has The Top Five Buyers’ Agents In King & Snohomish Counties

Our Seattle agents had another fantastic month in August!

Of the 2,000+ buyers agents who closed a deal in King & Snohomish Counties, the top five work at Redfin:

When you work with Redfin, you work with some of the most successful and most active agents in the region. Our agents know what’s going on in the market right now because they spend all of their time serving clients: touring homes, writing offers and closing deals.

These numbers come from the NWMLS, which tracks real estate transactions in Washington state. We ranked buyers’ agents in King & Snohomish Counties first by number of purchases of single-family homes and condominiums in August, then by total dollar amount.

Our Clients Love Our Service

We survey every client and track every transaction in a central customer database. For the surveys we received in August from our clients in the Seattle area:

• 72 clients responded to our customer-satisfaction survey and posted a review online, up from 57 in July.
• 70 of those clients, or 97%, would recommend Redfin to a friend, up from 95% in July.

We ask customers to rate the likelihood that they would recommend Redfin to a friend on a 0-to-10 scale. Customers who rated 6 or higher count as people who would recommend Redfin to a friend.

Biggest Discounts (Late) August Update

Let’s check (a rather bit late) in on our stats once again and find out where buyers are currently getting the biggest discounts off asking price. If you are a potential buyer, this will help you to know which neighborhoods may be softer in terms of sale price discounts off list price, and help you know where to look for potential bargains.

In the charts below, we have taken all sales data from last month in the Seattle area (King/Pierce/Snohomish) and sorted it by city. We calculated the overall difference between the sale price and the list price. Note that this reflects the final list price, after all price drops in the listing. Any areas with fewer than ten sales are excluded from the top and bottom ten rankings, but interested readers may download the full data summary in Excel format (xls).

Here are the top ten areas with the largest overall discount:

The overall discount rate increased slightly from June to July, moving from 3.5% to 3.6%.

Here are the ten areas with the smallest discounts:

In the 52 areas we ranked, the median discount was 3.2%.

Here’s the bonus graph, showing the discount off the original list price:

The overall discount off the original list price also increased, from June’s 8.7% to 9.0% in July.

Is the area you’re shopping not on either the top 10 or bottom 10? No problem, just download the full rankings in Excel format and hit the “FullSummary” sheet.

Of the 3,773 sales we tracked in the 1-month period, 862 homes sold for 5% or more off the asking price, while 98 homes sold for 5% or more above the asking price.

Redfin Update on the Brix and Gallery Auctions

Two weeks ago, we posted information about the 83 downtown condos to be auctioned off on September 27th. Since then, we’ve had a lot of clients touring and inquiring about how the Gallery and Brix auctions work. Here’s what you need to know if you’d like to tour or make an offer on an auction property and work with Redfin to get back 50% of the commission:

How To Tour Auction Properties With Redfin

If you want to work with Redfin to bid on an auction property, you need to take your first tour of the auction buildings with a Redfin agent so that the listing agents know you’re working with us. If you’ve already visited the auction buildings on your own without an agent, just make sure you go with a Redfin agent the next time you tour. Here’s how to set up a tour of the auction properties:

• To see the Gallery units, navigate to this listing and select “Go See This Home” button on the top right hand corner. You’ll see a warning message that the listing is marked as Contingent. Just click Yes to proceed with the tour.
• To see the Brix units, navigate to this listing and select “Go See This Home” button on the top right hand corner.

• This doesn’t mean you’re only touring this one condo unit. Since the auction units aren’t listed in the MLS, the buildings just show a few MLS numbers to represent all the units.   Feel free to ask the Redfin agent who schedules your tour if you have questions.

Registering to Bid at the Auction

In order to bid, you need to register for the auction. When you register, be sure to indicate you’re working with Redfin when you fill out the broker referral form.

You Must Be Pre-Approved

You also need to get pre-qualified for a loan with one of their onsite lender to participate in the auction. This doesn’t obligate you to get your loan with them. They just want to make sure that you’re able to get financing.  Keep in mind, even if you use another lender for your loan, you still must get pre-qualified with their onsite lender to participate in the auction.

To work with Redfin, we also require that you get pre-approved before making an offer.  We recommend that you work with one of our preferred lenders, but you can use any lender of your choice.

Bring a $2,500 Cashier’s Check To the Auction

If you’re going to bid, you need to bring a $2,500 cashier’s check made out to yourself. If you end up winning, you’ll endorse it to First American Title and it will become part of your 3% earnest money deposit on the home. You’ll be able to pay the rest of the deposit on the day of the auction with a personal check.

Submit an Offer to Redfin by September 20th

If you’re serious about bidding on an auction unit, we ask that you submit an offer with us by Sunday, September 20th so we can call you on Monday to discuss pricing strategy and the ins and outs of the auction scene.

Here’s how to submit an offer on an auction unit:

1. Go to our offer wizard

2.  If you’re not signed in or haven’t registered with Redfin, you’ll be prompted to sign up for an account.

3.  Once you’re logged in, you’ll be asked to Enter a Property by MLS Number or Address.

4.  Click the Address tab on the left hand side bar and enter “Gallery Auction” or “Brix Auction” in the Street field, along with Seattle, WA and the zip code.

5.  Click “Tell Us About Your Offer.”

6.  Enter all the information about the units you like and your proposed price and terms.

7.  Click “Done” at the bottom of the page.

A Redfin agent will follow up and answer all of your questions.  Anyone out there who has toured Brix or Gallery?  Let us know about your experience!

First-Time Buyer Hoping To Get The $8,000 Tax Credit? You Have A Month To Find A Home

The federal government is offering first-time home-buyers a tax credit of 10% of a home’s sales price up to $8,000. To qualify, you must close on a home by November 30th; if you close on December 1st, you’re out of luck.

If you’re a first-time buyer in the Seattle area, you have about a month left to find a home, make an offer and negotiate terms if you hope to close in time to get the $8,000 tax credit.

Close By November 13th

In a normal month, about 20% of closings slip from the last week of a month to the next. This number will almost certainly be higher in November due to the expected rush of buyers trying to get the tax credit and because November 30th falls on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

If you’re hoping to get the tax credit, you want to make sure you’ve closed before the week of Thanksgiving because it’s not a full work week:

• Wednesday, November 25th: A furlough day in King County, the county offices will be closed.
• Thursday, November 26th: Turkey day. A day to give thanks and watch the Detroit Lions go for six Thanksgiving Day losses in a row.
• Friday , November 27th: King, Snohomish & Pierce county offices are closed.
• Saturday & Sunday, November 28th & 29th: The banks aren’t open so you can’t close.
• Monday, November 30th: The last day to close and qualify for the first-time buyer tax credit. It’s going to be a goat rodeo.

To give yourself the best chance of getting the tax credit, plan on closing by November 13th. If you run into any problems during closing, you’ll have more than a week to work things out and still qualify for the tax credit.

Get An Offer Accepted By October 7th

Right now, it’s taking our Seattle-area clients an average of 37 days to close once they reach initial agreement on terms. It’s taking 40 days for clients who purchased their homes with FHA loans. This means if you want to close by November 13th, you need to get an offer accepted by October 7th if you have a conventional loan or October 4th if you have a FHA loan.

For more information, check out the Home Buyer Tax Credit FAQ from the IRS and get all the details about the tax credit from the agency giving the credit. Also, check out the report that this program may be extended.

Find A Home You Like

Don’t rush into a purchase. Make sure you’re buying because you’ve found a home you want to live in, not because you want the $8,000. You don’t want to end up in the wrong house in the wrong neighborhood with the wrong commute just for a few thousand dollars.

83 Downtown Condos Will Be Auctioned September 27th

Two of Seattle’s largest condo projects, Gallery in Belltown, and Brix in Capitol Hill, announced today that they are temporarily suspending sales and are auctioning off 43 units and 40 units, respectively.

Gallery

• 2911 2nd Ave
• 43 units up for auction
• Minimum bids starting at $196,000 for a 603 square foot open one bedroom up to $499,990 for a 1,438 square foot 2 bed, 2 bath.

Brix

• 536 Broadway E
• 40 units up for auction
• Minimum bids starting at $165,000 for a 523 square foot open one bedroom up to $295,000 for a 1,207 square foot townhouse.

The auctions are both September 27th at the Grand Hyatt Seattle (721 Pine Street). The Brix auction starts at 1 p.m. and the Gallery auction starts at 6 p.m. To participate each buyer must bring a cash equivalent of $2,500. Neither building is FHA-approved.

Buy at Auction with Redfin’s Help

Interested in buying but unsure about the auction process and want someone to help you from start to finish?

Our downtown Seattle agents, Corey and Allie, who have helped other buyers purchase at the Brix, can help you navigate the auction process from start to finish.

Both Corey and Allie can:

• Set up on a tour of either condo project
• Talk to you about recent comparable sales
• Assist in the bidding process and be there for the signing of the purchase and sale agreement (if you win)
• Guide you through the closing process

Our agents will be at the auctions.

You’ll also still be eligible for Redfin’s refund since Redfin will receive a 2% broker referral fee, of which we will refund 50% to you. Keep in mind that we do have a $5,500 minimum fee so if the final purchase price is below $275,000 you won’t receive a refund but will still receive great representation.

To be eligible for the Redfin refund, we do need to accompany you on your first visit.

To get started, just add a listing from Gallery or from Brix to your tour cart and click “Schedule My Tour”. We’ll get you in and you can see all the homes you need to.

Reference

• Gallery auction site
• Brix auction site
• Results from previous Seattle area condo auctions
  • Lumen auction results
  • Queen Anne High auction results

Case-Shiller: Seattle Flat While Rest of Nation Bounces Up

It’s time for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI). For the full source data behind this post, plus seasonally adjusted and tiered price data, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – June data is released in August).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Seattle Area* as of June:

Sixteen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw an increase in their respective seasonally-adjusted HPIs between May and June. Only Las Vegas, Detroit, Seattle, and Charlotte still saw seasonally-adjusted drops month-to-month. Hmm.

It is somewhat odd that even though most of the cities tracked by Case-Shiller have turned sharply upward since March or April, Seattle has more or less been flat. I’m not entirely sure what to make of that, since I thought our local economy was supposed to be stronger than the rest of the country… right?

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.

It’s quite noticeable in both of the above charts that almost every city we’re tracking seems to have taken a sudden upward turn with the most recent few months of data. Despite the fact that there was a nearly two year spread in when the various markets hit their peak (Boston in September 2005, Seattle in July 2007), nearly every market appears to have turned a sharp corner to the positive after “bottoming” in March or April.

A commenter over on Seattle Bubble made an astute observation about this phenomenon this morning:

Since it is still essentially true that “real estate is local”, what could cause every city to suddenly and simultaneously reach an equilibrium point where prices reversed course?

Answer: it just so happens that the home buyers’ tax credit was enacted with the American Reinvestment act (stimulus package) effective February 17, 2009. March 2009 was the first full month that American home buyers had the tax credit as an incentive. It changed their behavior and made them buy homes. It also expires on December 1, 2009 unless it is extended.

Once again, government policy is impacting asset valuations. Either we’re seeing a lasting nationwide housing bottom marked by an extraordinarily well-timed tax incentive, or a new “bubblet.” Case Shiller won’t tell us which until 2010.

It remains to be seen whether the NAR’s lobbying efforts to get the $8,000 tax credit extended beyond November will be successful. And even if they do convince Congress to extend it, the effect may be largely diminished. The program may have already pulled forward as many sales as it can during its spring and summer run.

*[Case-Shiller defines Seattle as the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.]

East Side Update: Somerset and Bridle Trails Are Popular

Loren Ellingson, the top buyers’ agents in King County, is seeing a lot of activity in Somerset and Bridle Trails on the East Side.

A lot of people are touring and making offers in Somerset and Bridle Trails right now. Most of these buyers are looking at homes priced above $750,000. Buying a home in these neighborhoods can be tricky because it’s hard to determine the market value of a property — each home is unique, so it’s hard to find comparable homes among recent sales. You need to make sure your agent is pulling the most recent comps when making an offer.

Only 22% Of Offers Are On Homes With Multiple Bids

In July, our Seattle-area agents presented 122 offers and just 27 of them, or 22%, were on homes with at least one other offer, down from 30% in June.

“On the East Side we’re just not seeing many multiple offer situations,” says Loren. “Most homes with multiple offers tend to be bank-owned homes that have been aggressively priced to attract a lot of buyers.”

What are you seeing on the East Side?

The Market Wrap-Up For July

Let’s take at look at the July numbers for King County and see how they compare to a year ago.

Single-Family Homes & Condos in King County

According the NWMLS’ records, in July:

• 13,589 homes were for sale, down from 16,313 in July 2008
• 4,261 new listings came on the market, down from 4,862 in July 2008
• 2,161 homes sold, up from 2,041 in July 2008
• The median sales price was $350,000, down from $401,500 in July 2008

Dig Deeper Into the Trends

These numbers are for King county. To see what’s happening in your neighborhood, check out our stats & trends pages.

What Other People Said

The July wrap-up at The Seattle Condo Blog has a good breakdown of what happened in the condo market.

Tim’s posts at the Seattle Bubble blog are always insightful and a great place for people looking for data-rich analyses of the market. Check out the:

• Monthly wrap-up for Western Washington
• Look at sales volume in July
• Quarterly sales report for pending and closed sales for April, May & June

This is our first monthly report on the inventory trends in Seattle. What numbers would you like to see in our August wrap-up?

Redfin Has The Top Three Buyers’ Agents In King County

July was another amazing month for our Seattle agents!

For the fifth consecutive month, the top three buyer’s agents in King County work at Redfin:

*Rachelle recently left Redfin to go back to school.

When you work with Redfin, you’ll be working with some of the best agents in the region. Our agents know what’s going on in the market right now because they spend all of their time serving clients: touring homes, writing offers and closing deals.

These numbers come from the NWMLS, which tracks real estate transactions in Washington state. We ranked buyers’ agents in King County first by number of purchases of single-family homes and condominiums in July, then by total dollar amount.

It’s Been A Busy Summer

June and July were busy months in Seattle; our clients toured 4,189 homes and our agents presented 241 offers on homes for sale. Our Seattle team really hit it out of the park and thrilled our clients with fantastic service. To keep up with demand we promoted two agents Corey St. John and Klaus Gosma.

Corey and Klaus stepped up and were all-stars in July. They did whatever needed to be done to make sure our clients were happy: they led tours, hosted inspections, negotiated terms and closed deals. Great job guys!

Our Clients Love Our Service

We survey every client and track every transaction in a central customer database. For the surveys we received in July from our clients in the Seattle area:

• 57 clients responded to our customer-satisfaction survey and posted a review online, down from 63 in June.
• 54 of those clients, or 95%, would recommend Redfin to a friend, the same rate as in June.

We ask customers to rate the likelihood that they would recommend Redfin to a friend on a 0-to-10 scale. Customers who rated 6 or higher count as people who would recommend Redfin to a friend.

For more numbers, download the spreadsheet with the data on what happened in July.

Case-Shiller: Seasonal Home Price Bump Turns Flat in May

It’s time for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI). For the full source data behind this post, plus seasonally adjusted and tiered price data, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – May data is released in July).

Before we dig into the data, I’d like to make a brief mention of an excellent post over at the economics website Calculated Risk: A Few Comments on Housing Reports. Quoting from his post:

…the Case-Shiller report today really bothered me. To be more accurate, the reporting on the Case-Shiller report bothers me. As I mentioned earlier today, there is a strong seasonal component to house prices, and although the seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller index was down (Case-Shiller was reported as up by the media) – I don’t think the seasonal factor accurately captures the recent swings in the NSA data.

Keep in mind that the Case-Shiller data that most of the media (including this blog) are reporting on is usually the raw index data. As CR mentioned, the housing market is a very seasonal beast, so it’s difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions from month-to-month changes, unless they are far outside the norm for that time of year. This is why we consistently report the year-to-year change in our summary.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Seattle area* as of May:

May 2009
Month to Month: Down 0.3% (raw)
Month to Month Down 0.8% (seasonally adjusted)
Year to Year: Down 16.6%
Change from Peak: Down 22.5% in 22 months

The following chart shows the Seattle HPI scaled such that the July 2007 peak is 100% on the y-axis. Data on the x-axis is scaled to display the last time (pre-peak) the Seattle HPI was at or lower than it was in the latest data (May 2005).

(All of the charts below are based on the non-seasonally-adjusted Case-Shiller HPI data.)

Fourteen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw an increase in their respective raw HPIs in May. Joining Seattle in continuing declines were Tampa, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, and Las Vegas.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves, so you can compare Seattle’s performance to other areas across the country:

And here’s our final chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that in addition to being from a usually-strong time of year, these numbers represent home sales that closed during the frenzy of interest rates in the fours and the debut of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit. In my opinion, we won’t really know if home price declines are mostly over until we see the data from October / November. And that advice is worth exactly what you paid for it ;^)

*[Case-Shiller defines Seattle as the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.]