Clark County WA Real Estate Market Report - September 2018

Real Estate Sales Slowing Sharply in Clark County WA for September 2018.

Sales of existing homes has been taking a big hit of late, with this month's tally for Units-sold down a whopping 109 units compared to the same month last year! Here are the key highlights for this month: 

• Average-Sales Prices are starting to fall, although still in positive territory with the 12-month/long-term trend line up 9.94% compared to last year at this time;  and the 3-Month Moving Average is up 7.77% from September last year; 
   
• The Inventory for Resale Homes slipped to 2.2 Months Supply;
   
• Approximately 527 Resale Homes closed in the month, which is about 109 fewer (-17.1%) homes than in 2017; and 154 fewer than last month.
   
• REO/Bank Owned property sales were 3 units (0.6% of total); down from 10 (1.6%) in 2017. 
   
• Short Sale /Pre-Foreclosure property sales were 2 units (0.4% of total); no change from 2 (0.3%) in 2017.

The month-end, 30-year-fixed home loan benchmark interest rate is 4.63% (up slightly from 4.55% last month) according to Freddie Mac; compared to 3.81% for September 2017.

The Unit-Volume chart shows both the short term (in red) and long term (12-month moving average in Blue) trends (shown below): 

Clark County Home Sales - Units Sold Trend September 2018

With both trend-lines clearly moving lower from the peak seen in the past two years, the local market is looking for a new equilibrium.  With prices still rising at a pace above the long-term average, we still seem to be in a position of short-supply with respect to Buyer-Demand.

The next chart shows the trends for Average Home Sales Price, both the short-term and long-term: 

Clark County Home Sales - Average Sales Price Trend September 2018

The September short term Average sales price for Clark County is now up to $399,010; but down slightly from last month. This represents an increase of approximately $28,751 from the same month last year.

Our last set of graphs from RMLS show:

Clark County Home Sales Inventory
& Days on Market - September 2018

New Listings, Pending Sales and Closed Sales all came in lower. Active Inventory however, eased slightly. 

The second graph with Prices for new listings and closed sales are still at a relatively high price level. 

Days on the Market: the Average dropped by several days; with the Median increasing by a few days. Both are in the zone we typically see week - again, very uncharacteristic for one of the usually best sales months of the entire year.

If you are interest the RMLS published report on the Clark County real estate scene can be found here: RMLS Market Action Report on our main website.
 

---

PS - The real estate market is adjusting to the much higher prices combined with higher loan costs however, there is still time to List and Sell Your Home with Our Team for 2018; 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 - Looking to buy a home this year?  Interest rates are still at historically very low rates.  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 Real Estate | Brush Prairie WA Homes | Camas WA Homes For Sale | Hockinson WA Homes | La Center WA Homes for sale | Ridgefield WA Homes for sale | Homes for sale in Vancouver Washington | Washougal WA Real Estate | Yacolt WA Homes | Amboy WA Homes

---

The information and charts in this Clark County WA real estate update (prepared by Vancouver WA Real Estate Broker, 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.