Seattle Home Sales Rise in June, Prices Fade

June’s existing home sales were the highest in three years, yet Seattle home prices showed slight declines.

DataQuick reports Seattle Region June Home Sales

A total of 4,513 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow during June in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan statistical area encompassing King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. June sales rose 9.0 percent from 4,142 in May and increased 9.6 percent from 4,118 in June 2009, according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records.

Seattle-area sales have risen on a year-over-year basis for 12 consecutive months. In June they were the highest for that month since 2007, but they were still 29.3 percent below average and the third-lowest for a June since 1994, when DataQuick’s complete Seattle-area statistics begin.

The 127 homes that sold for over $1 million in June represented a 24.5 percent increase from a year earlier, based on an analysis of public records that identifies transactions with either a sale price or loan amount of $1 million or more.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos combined in June was $295,950, down 1.4 percent from May and down 5.1 percent from $312,000 a year earlier.

June’s median was 19.0 percent lower than the Seattle area’s peak $365,200 median in June 2007. The overall median has fallen on a year-over-year basis for 29 straight months.