Seattle Home Sales Slow as Prices Rise

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Seattle region homes sold at the slowest pace in 15 years during May as bargain shoppers found a much lower supply of deeply discounted foreclosures than they would have in many other Western markets. Given the smaller impact from distressed homes, the region's price measures continued to hold up relatively well: The overall median sale price rose slightly from April and fell a relatively mild 11% below a year ago and 16% from the area's 2007 peak, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 3,142 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in May in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan statistical area encompassing King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Last month's sales rose 13.5% from April but dropped 21.7% from a year earlier, according to MDA DataQuick. The San Diego firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records.

Last month's sales total was the lowest for any May since at least 1994, when DataQuick's complete Seattle-area statistics begin. Sales have fallen on a year-over-year basis for 36 consecutive months. New-home sales were at a record low for a May.

Foreclosures are playing a much larger role in Seattle's housing market than they did a year ago. But they're well below the levels seen in many other Western markets, where steeper price declines - especially on foreclosed properties - have boosted affordability and spurred robust sales. In May, 19.2% of the Seattle-area homes that resold had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months, up from 5.9% a year ago but down from a peak of 21.8% in February 2009. In Las Vegas, Phoenix and much of California, such foreclosure resales made up half or more of all resale activity in May.