Despite Slowing of Sales in King County, Home Prices on the Rise

While the state of the Washington housing market is not as dire as that of other areas, demand for new homes is still slowing down.

This is especially true in King County, where sales activity continued to decline compared to a year ago. However, housing prices rose again last month, according to a new report from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

When data from single-family homes and condominiums were combined, the report showed a 10.2 percent increase in the median price of a King County home in October to $391,300. Such a figure at least explains why many potential home mortgage applicants are waiting until prices go down.

Meanwhile, there was a 10.7 percent drop in closed sales from the numbers in October 2005. Additionally, there was a 9.2 percent drop in pending sales, with 3,312 pending sales reported in October, compared to 3,649 for the same month a year ago.

Condominiums outperformed single-family homes last month in sales prices. The median price of a condo unit in October was up 20.8 percent at $259,700, compared to $215,000. That compares to a 12.8 percent increase in the median price of a single-family home, which last month rose to $440,000 from $390,000 in October 2005.

Condo sales also showed less slowing than sales of single-family homes.

In October, there were 872 condominium sales pending, down 6.4 percent compared to the period last year. Pending single-family home sales were down 10.2 percent in October to 2,440 pending sales, compared to 2,717 pending sales for the month last year.