Clark County Real Estate - May 2017 Report

Inventory of Active Listings Improves Slightly for Clark County WA's Real Estate Market.

With the local real estate market in the height of activity for this year, the number of sales is off about 6% year-to-date.  Low Inventory and Higher Prices are the likely cause. Here are some of the highlights for May's results: 

• Average-Sales Prices are higher, with the 12-month/long-term trend line up 9.86% compared to May 2016,  and the 3-Month Moving Average  is up 10.18% from last year; 
   
• The Inventory for Resale Homes has been creeping up and is now at a still-low 1.6-Months Supply;
   
• Approximately 646 Resale Homes were sold in the month, which is about 9 fewer (-1.4%) homes than in 2016.
   
• REO/Bank Owned property sales were 14 units (2.2% of total); down from 15 (2.3%) in 2016. 
   
• Short Sale /Pre-Foreclosure property sales were 13 units (2.0% of total); down from 20 (3.1%) in 2016.

The month-end, 30-year-fixed home loan benchmark interest rate is 4.01% (down from 4.05% last month) according to Freddie Mac; compared to 3.60% for May 2016. The recent rate "actions" by the Federal Reserve don't necessarily translate into increases in the Home Loan / Mortgage financing rates.

Our custom graphs/charts for Clark County WA that will help tell the rest of this real estate market's story. We apply a simple "smoothing" technique to better present the short-term trend (3-month moving average in Red); and long-term trend (12-month moving average in Blue). 

Clark County Home Sales - Units Sold Trend May 2017

Unusual this year is that this is typically the month where we see the short-term line break-through the blue line.  Maybe next month for this indicator?  With the extremely low level of inventory it makes sense that the long-term line will be going sideways or downwards.

Moving to the next chart: Average Sales prices (shown below) are strongly rising, as the demand for homes to purchase has not abated much. 

Clark County Home Sales - Average Sales Price Trend May 2017

The May short term Average sales price for Clark County is now up to $352,262.  This is an increase of about $32,559 from the same month last year.

Clark County Home Sales Inventory
& Days on Market - May 2017

These final graphs from RMLS show:

Both New Listings and Pending Sales, are rising at an almost evenly matched pace.  The result is that the inventory level is not improving very much.

The second graph shows the continued strong pressure on the average price of new listings.

Finally, for the Days on the Market, as measured by the average and median Days on Market has dropped moderately for the Average, and is in an extremely low level for the Median.

More information from the RMLS published report on the Clark County real estate scene can be found here: RMLS Market Action Report on our website.

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PS - This is an Excellent Time to Sell Your Home; or, at least find out what your home is worth!  We offer a no-cost, no-obligation Clark County WA Home Valuation, and invite you to try it out!

PPS - You are invited to visit our web-page for Clark County WA  Homes For Sale where it is Quite Easy to search by City, Neighborhood or by Category, with homes and real estate listings from the entire RMLS.  Sign-up Not Required!  The property and home listings shown are provided via many updates each day, and you will be e-mailed hourly with any new matches once you've signed up for a home search.

We also have the MLS Listings for these great towns in Clark County:  Battle Ground WA Homes | Brush Prairie WA Homes | Camas WA Homes | Hockinson WA Homes | La Center WA Homes | Ridgefield WA Homes | Vancouver WA Homes | Washougal WA Homes | Yacolt WA Homes | Amboy WA Homes

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The information and charts in this Clark County WA real estate update (prepared by Vancouver WA Realtor, John Slocum, CRS, SFR, our resident statistician) are based on home sales recorded in the Clark County WA MLS system (RMLS), excluding sales of mobile home; and shows the purchase activity since 2009; charting the 3 month Moving average number of sales, and the 12 month Moving average.  This "smoothing" of the trend-data helps illustrate the short-term and longer term trends in Clark County's real estate market.

Disclaimer: as with any real estate statistics, we do our best to provide the best representation at the time the data was acquired and compiled.  The data and reports are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.