January 2024: Available inventory in our markets continues to decline due to typical seasonal patterns. Limited new listings are fueled by seller reluctance due to interest rates. They feel trapped with their low interest mortgages, limiting their ability to purchase the home that they want to purchase after they sell. Buyers are feeling limited by the lack of inventory.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors indicates that the worst is over and 2024 will mark a year of recovery. “Price increases have become much more moderate than the past two years,” Yun said. “That’s a good thing. Income growth is catching up with home prices.”

Incremental drops in the interest rate in recent weeks have given some hope of things to come. Economists are still indicating that rates will drop further during 2024, just not as fast as initially indicated. Most are forecasting a rate below 6.5% by the end of the second quarter.

New Listings:  Properties added to our markets in January continued to be very low. Stanwood had 24 new listings added in the month, 33% of these were new construction homes. The Camano Island market suffered seasonal lows with only 9 new listings added, less than half during the same time last year.

Pending Sales:  28 homes went pending in the Stanwood market in January, double the same time last year. In contrast, only 10 homes found a buyer on Camano Island, down by 55% from last year at this time.

Properties Sold:   January marked the lowest number of sold listings in over a year, with only 25 homes finding their buyers (6 in Camano Island, 19 in Stanwood)

Sale Price: The average sales price is skewed on Camano Island due to a limited number of sales. Of the six sales, four of them were over $850,000. Therefore, the rolling 12 months average home price is a better measurement of this market. On Camano Island this average is $752,337 (5% lower than the same time last year). In Stanwood, the average sales price of $650,990 is a better reflection of that market’s transactions.

December 2023: December marked the lowest number of new listings for all of 2023 in both the Stanwood and Camano Island markets. As a result, active inventory is the lowest that it has been since April. Seasonal patterns typical of this time of year and low inventory resulted in the lowest number of homes finding buyers this month as compared to the rest of the year. These factors persisted to pressure home prices upward month to month. Selma Hepp of CoreLogic was quoted as saying “strong home price gains over the course of the year indicate that home prices in most of Washington state markets have fully recovered from 2022 losses and are reaching new highs again.”

December brought some hopeful signs for both buyers and sellers as interest rates began incremental drops. Economists are predicting a continued decline in interest rates through 2024. This should stimulate pent-up buyer demand and allow sellers trapped in their low interest mortgages to reenter the real estate market.

New Listings: December had the lowest number of new listings for the year. Only 15 homes came on the market in Stanwood and 11 on Camano Island. This is typical for this time of year during the holidays.

Pending Sales: 24 homes went pending in the Stanwood market in December, 71% more than at the same time last year. In contrast, only 8 homes found a buyer, down by 38% from last year at this time.

Properties Sold: Our combined markets had 33 home sales close, 18% higher than last year when only 28 homes sold.

Sale Price: Average sales prices of properties sold in Stanwood and Camano Island have gone down since the same time last year by 4% and 7% respectively. We are seeing incremental price increases month over month resulting in the average sales price of $675,000 in Stanwood and $743,023 on Camano Island, up 19.3% from the beginning of the year.

October 2023: In the past months, the purchasing power of potential home buyers has weakened further with rising interest rates and a continued lack of inventory, creating a slowdown in market activity. Active listings in our combined market have remained fairly steady over the past six months at just over 100 homes in our combined markets. At the same time, the number of listings sold has decreased by roughly 20%.

According to Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at National Association of Realtors®, “The interest rate rises should be over, the Fed will have to consider cutting interest rates seriously. Mortgage rates look to head towards 7% in a few months and into the 6% range by the spring of 2024.” We are seeing evidence of his predictions already as rates have dropped in the past few weeks to the mid 7% range currently.

New Listings: In the month of October, we had 45 sellers put their homes up for sale. There were 22 new listings in Stanwood, and 23 on Camano Island. This is the lowest that we have seen in nine months, and it is about 25% lower than the same time last year.

Pending Sales: The number of homes going under contract in October is up slightly since last year. Our two zip codes saw 42 homes find their buyers this past month, different from 2022 when we had only 36.
Properties Sold: We had 50 homes close and sell in the month of October, the same as last month.

Sale Price: Average sales prices of properties sold in Stanwood and Camano Island are down slightly less than .5% from the previous month but continue to hold above $700,000 cumulatively. They are $676,198 in Stanwood and $751,744 on Camano Island.

September 2023: Home values are still holding strong with Average Sales prices at over $700,000 for our two zip codes. Additional home price gains are more challenging in the short term due to continued mortgage rate increases that limit prospective buyers' purchasing power. The result is a continued decline in transaction volume in our current market. Some of this is also attributable to a typical market slowdown in the fall and winter months. But it is magnified by rate increases and inflation.

There is strong evidence and optimism that this will change in the first half of 2024. Pent-up demand, low inventories, and indications of interest rate adjustments will have sellers thinking positively about their options by next year.

New Listings: The number of new listings coming on the market is down month-over-month slightly with only 69 homes coming on for sale in our combined markets, compared to 71 last month. There were 35 in Stanwood and 34 on Camano Island.

Pending Sales: The number of homes going under contract in September continues to decline to the lowest level since January of this year. Our two zip codes saw 45 homes find their prospective buyers this past month. This is a factor of low inventories and high-interest rates.

Properties Sold: We had only 50 homes close in the month of September. That is down 20% from the same time last year.

Sale Price: Average sales prices of properties sold in Stanwood and Camano Island continue to hold above $700,000 cumulatively. They are $674,624 in Stanwood and $752,699 on Camano Island.

August 2023: Pending sales on homes during August in our two markets were both up year over year from 2022. We had 29 listings find a buyer on Camano Island and 34 in Stanwood, versus 25 and 31 respectively last year. Other key metrics for August activity showed year-over-year declines, including average sales price, new and active listings, and closed sales.

Traditionally, our real estate cycle has experienced a late summer slowdown as consumers pause to enjoy the last of our summer weather and prepare for the beginning of the school year. Experts are also pointing to higher mortgage rates as the reason for the declining sales. With rates around 7.25%, they are the highest we have seen for 30-year home loans since 2001. Many potential sellers are reluctant to give up their 3% rates to move to a new home with a 7% mortgage. And many buyers are waiting for rates to decline, hoping to increase their buying power.

Lifestyle decisions and changes continue to drive some listing and sales activity. With limited inventory, we are still firmly in a sellers’ market. Due to the historically lower number of homes predicted to come onto the market during the winter months, this may be the best selection and availability of homes for buyers until early spring 2024.

New Listings: We saw a slight decline in new listings added to our combined markets from last month, down to 71 from last month’s 75. But, that is down significantly from June’s high of 98. In August, there were 35 listings added in Stanwood and 36 in our Camano Island market.

Pending Sales: The number of homes going under contract in August decreased by 25% from July of this year, from 84 to 63 in our two zip codes. It was down only slightly in Stanwood to 34, from 39 in July. The Camano market saw a large decline in pendings from 45 last month to only 29 in August.

Properties Sold: Due to a high number of July 2023 pendings, our sold properties in August are up 30% from last month with a combined 88 homes closed in the month. This was the highest that we have seen this year.

Sale Price: Average sales prices of properties sold in Stanwood and Camano Island continue to increase incrementally month over month in 2023. The average sales price is $672,345 in Stanwood and $749,173 on Camano Island.

July 2023: Economists are predicting that mortgage interest rates will adjust down over the next couple of quarters. Predictions are that we will see rates fall below 6% in the 2nd quarter of 2024. When this happens, the housing market will be poised to grow again. The hope is that many of these buyers will have homes to sell, which would result in additional inventory.

In the Stanwood and Camano Island area markets, our active inventory is down from the past couple of months, with only 101 homes available in our combined market (47 in Stanwood and 54 on Camano Island) as of the end of July. That is down over 47% from a year ago when we had 149 active listings in our markets. At the same time, our pending listings continue to increase every month in 2023. The month of July saw 84 sellers find their buyer in our markets (39 in Stanwood and 45 on Camano Island), up almost 10% from the same time last year, when we had 77 pendings combined.

The average sales price continues to increase month over month since the beginning of 2023. Between our two zip codes, the average sales price is $701,364, up about 20% from where we started at the beginning of the year. That figure is down approximately 9% from July of last year.

New Listings: There were 75 new listings added to our combined market inventories last month, 40 in Stanwood and 35 on Camano Island, down almost 25% from last month.

Pending Sales: While new listings dropped month over month, the number of homes that went under contract in July increased by more than 25% compared to last month. We have 84 pending listings in our two zip codes, compared to only 67 in June. Year-over-year pending sales for July are slightly up from 77 last July 2022. This is the highest pending volume that our markets have seen in over a year.

Properties Sold: We had 62 sales closed in our market last month, compared to 77 last year at the same time. We have seen that number consistently increasing month over month during 2023.

Sale Price: Average sales prices of properties sold in Stanwood and Camano Island continue to increase incrementally month over month in 2023. The average sales price is $671,166 in Stanwood and $738,033 on Camano Island.

June 2023: the Stanwood and Camano Island area markets have seen our highest volume of closed sales last month (61 homes) in over nine months when we saw 81 homes sold in August 2022. The result, our current active listings are down 17% for the same time period as last year, with 127 homes available in our markets (72 on Camano Island and 55 in Stanwood). Despite the one-year decline, this is the highest inventory that we have seen this year. We are over 20% higher than the 105 active listings we saw at the end of May.

In comparison, the number of homes for sale in the Stanwood and Camano Island area combined in June is down over 30% from the same month in 2019 (pre-pandemic). According to Matthew Gardner, Windermere’s Chief Economist, “I believe much of the reason for this is that almost 33% of in-state homeowners have mortgage rates at or below 3%, and 87% of owners have rates below 5%. There is little incentive to list your home for sale if you do not have to:

New Listings: We saw 98 new listings added to our inventory last month, 53 on Camano Island and 45 in Stanwood. Down a little less than 25% compared to the 130 added at the same time last year. In 2023, this is the highest number of new listings added in a month.

Pending Sales: Year-over-year Pending sales for June are slightly up, from 61 last June 2022 to 67 last month. This is the highest pending volume that our markets have seen since July of 2022 when we had 83 properties under contract.

Properties Sold: We had 61 sales close in our market last month, compared to 94 last year at the same time. During 2023 we have seen that number consistently increasing month over month.

Sale Price: Average sales prices of properties sold in Stanwood and Camano Island have increased month over month in 2023. In Stanwood, the average sales price is $659,222 and the average sales price on Camano is $725,412.