Covid-19 Weekly Market Updates #13

There have been so many big, difficult, and heartbreaking things going on that require face-to-face conversations to help us connect, learn, and grow. If for no other reason, I am grateful to be in Phase 2 for just that- to see faces in person and have opportunities to talk about these issues!

New Listings for 2019 went down from last week to this week last year, and for 2020 they increased. We are seeing increasing listings as our county moves to feeling more safe with Covid-19.  I am truly interested to see if we catch up to where we normally are YTD with new listings over the next month.  My prediction is we will continue to see an increase in the number of listings each week. I know I’ve never simultaneously prepped as many lisitngs at one time as I am working on right now!

• 2019: 133 → 108
• 2020: 86 → 92

Below is an accounting of all of the active listings on the market in our three major markets along with all of the sales that went under contract from 6/6 to 6/12/20 (pulled around Noon PST) and the percentage relationship between those numbers.

Last week, as it was announced that our county was approved to move to Phase 2 of Washington’s Safe Start Plan, I was guessing that we’d start seeing the Under Contract numbers start creeping up. I was mostly correct- while Bellingham’s Under Contract numbers fell from 30, Ferndale and Lynden both saw an increase. I think this is just the beginning.

The second chart represents the Average Days on Market (ADOM) for the homes that are currently active and that went under contract between 6/6/20 and 6/12/20. “Days on Market” is how long the home was active on the market before the seller accepted an offer.

The Under Contract homes in the Bellingham and Ferndale Markets did see a drop in numbers over the week, but Lynden increased from 19 to 88 days!

The last set of data below is the average prices of the active listings and the average prices of the homes that went under contract last week. What we are mostly paying attention to here is how the % difference is changing from week to week to see how COVID-19 might be affecting the offer price that homes receive.

We are back to lower Under Contract average prices than Active average prices in all three areas. The biggest percent difference being in Ferndale. There were 10 new listings brought on the market over $800,000 in Whatcom County in the last week- which is a lot compared to the last 12 weeks.