James Hua of of Seattle Real Estate sent us some interesting facts about the real estate situation in Wallingford:
The median price for homes sold in King County is $380,000 in August. Meanwhile, properties in Wallingford aren’t nearly as affordable, with a median price for Single Family Residential (SFR’s) 18% higher, at $447,000. Even so they move much faster, with average days on market at 16 compared to King County’s 43.
It’s no surprise that Wallingford’s home prices tend to be higher than the rest of King County, but it’s interesting to hear it’s a full 18% higher.
The big thing these days, at least at the water cooler, seems to be “short sales”, where the asking price is not only lower than the seller originally paid, but lower than the seller owes on their mortgage (James has a list of key “distressed real estate” terms on his web site.) James notes, though, that the “list price” is often far below market and not approved by the bank, meaning offers often don’t make it through to sale. “While this increases pendings (homes with mutual acceptance) it can serve as a smoke screen,” Hua notes. “Short sales typically have a 30% success rate which means 70% of the short sales that go pending never go through.”
Wallingford is doing well, in this regard, though: 11.2 % of Seattle listings and 10.3% of Bellevue listings are “distressed” (and Kirkland is 15%!), but only 4.5% of Wallingford listings are distressed.
Go Wallingford! Way to be not distressed!
It’s cool to see Wallingford doing well. Seems like the established neighborhoods, Queen Anne, Wallingford, etc are doing better than the curve.
We really have been lucky in Wallingford, and N. Seattle in general. There are very few foreclosures compared to the Greater Seattle metro and the nation in general. There are only about 200 bank-owned homes in the Seattle metro available on the MLS right now. That’s miniscule compared to most cities.
Sam DeBord
Broker, SeattleHome.com
It’s nice about the foreclosures, but I’d be interested in knowing the median income of Wallingford residents/homeowners, just out of curiosity– seems like it’d have to be pretty high if we’re really seeing this level of turnaround. Of course, it also has its drawbacks– it’s certainly one of the least diverse neighborhoods in town, likely in part because homes are so unaffordable. It’s “Middle Class” for Seattle, but compared to most of the rest of the world, Wallingfordians are pretty wealthy.