Rio isn’t the only place where Olympic records will broken; our “Olympian,” WA real estate market continues to deliver a gold medal performance! Here’s a quick summary of the real estate market activity, and be sure to scroll to the bottom to see the recap of the market for several counties in Western Washington.
The Gold goes to……..Pending Sales. Pending home sales in April through June achieved levels never before seen in our market. Each month had more than 600 sales with an average of 618. The previous best for any of those months was set in May 2015, when we had 545 sales.
The Silver goes to……Home Prices. Homes prices are nearly back to top levels with prices up 10.7% over the past year.
The Bronze goes to……Days on Market. With more buyers than sellers, buyers are acting faster than ever in this competitive market. Well-priced homes—those that did not require a price reduction before receiving an acceptable offer—are going under contract in an average of just 13 days. That pace is unheard of in our market. It is more than a month faster than in 2006, which was the last peak of sales activity.
How Sellers can make the most of this market.
Most sellers are thrilled with the idea that homes are selling so quickly. Few people come to me and say, “I hope my home sits on the market for months and months.”
Preparation. Most of the sellers that are selling quickly and for top dollar have put in the extra effort. Buffing up the home so it looks its best, including targeted maintenance items and staging to inspire maximum buyer interest are the first steps.
Promotion. Next comes the promotional campaign with great photos and descriptions that connect the home to the target buyers’ dreams of living. A thoughtful and wide distribution strategy is then needed pull those buyers in. Doing these things right requires experience and know-how, as well as a commitment to be one’s strongest critic.
Pricing. Finally the pricing strategy for the property is important to re-examine just before the home hits the market. Setting a compelling asking price requires evaluating the latest activity, from recently sold homes, to those that are languishing on the market, to the newly listed competition.
Meet our 2016 Scholarship winner Margaret Maclay!
Congratulations to the first place scholarship winner of Coldwell Banker Evergreen Olympic Realty’s 6th annual What Makes a House a Home scholarship contest, Margaret Maclay (pictured with her mother Annie Maclay and siblings Ellen and Tavish).
Margaret wrote a fantastic essay about the history of her home. Her essay was rich with the memories from her first home to the warmth of her new address.
Here’s her winning essay: The History Of My Home By Margaret Maclay
My current house is not my first home. It is the second address to live at the tip of my tongue, and the second set of directions written on the back of my hand. It came later, replacing the house that all three kids were born in, the first house my parents had together, the house that remembered my first words, my first steps, my first tantrum. As a particularly sentimental person, I was more than reluctant to let go of this history and call a new place home. Eventually, I realized that we are a family of individuals living in an eternal work in progress, and it is these two things that make our house a home.
I watched this house being built from the ground up by my dad’s own hands. I saw every ounce of work he poured into building something better for our growing family, and watched as he woke up for work at six and then drove across town at five in the evening to work on our new house, sometimes not coming back until nine. My own handprint lies in the cement foundation, a nine year old’s mark on the world. However, for all the sawdust summers, the way the nailgun rewrote the rhythm of my heart beat, it was never quite finished. There are always half started ideas and unfinished plans.
Now, six years later, I walk into my house everyday by turning the stiff doorknob a little extra hard, ignoring the light fixture in the entryway that has never had a bulb. I walk past my dad’s building plans laid out across the coffee table, my brother’s trains chugging their way across the living room floor, my mom’s shoes covered in dirt from gardening, my sister’s unassuming masterpieces gracing the dining table, my own books and dance shoes piled high on the couch. I’m alone in the living room, but I can hear my mom’s fingers flying at sixty words a minute as she works in the office, my four year old brother having a teaparty with his stuffed animals, and my sister singing in her room as she works on her latest artwork. In a few hours I’ll pass my dad in the driveway as he comes home and I go to dance.
Everyone in my family has their own story and they leave little paragraphs inside the unpainted walls, the piles of belongings littering the stairs. I don’t need a history to make my house a home. I just need my family to keep writing their own history, and I need my home to store that history until we need to move it.
Here’s a check of the
