January is a Great Time for a Home Inventory

Generally speaking, when you need an inventory of your personal belongings, it is too late to make one.  Sure, you can reconstruct it but undoubtedly, you'll forget things and that can cost you money when filing your insurance claim.

Most homeowner's policies have a certain amount of coverage for personal items that can be 40-60% of the value of the home.
Homeowners who have a loss are usually asked by the insurance company for proof of purchase which can come in the form of a receipt or current inventory of their personal belongings.
The most organized people might find it difficult, if not impossible, to find receipts for the valuable things in their home.  Think about when you're rummaging around a drawer or closet looking for something else and you discover something that you had totally forgotten that you had.
An inventory is like insurance for your insurance policy to be certain that you list everything possible if you need to make a claim.  Systematically, make a list of the items by going through the rooms, along with the drawers and closets.  In a clothes closet, you can list the number of shirts, pants, dresses and pairs of shoes but higher cost items should be listed separately.
Photographs and videos can be adequate proof that the items belonged to the insured.  A series of pictures of the different rooms, closets, cabinets and drawers can be very helpful.  When video is used, consider narrating as it is shot and be sure to go slow enough and close enough to see the things clearly.
For more suggestions and an easy to use, interactive form, download a Home Inventory, complete it, and save a copy off premise, either in a safety deposit box or digitally in the cloud if you have server-based storage available like Dropbox.

Real Estate Sales Report - December 2018

Another Monthly Drop in Real Estate Sales for Clark County WA for December 2018.

Resale (pre-owned) properties are down significantly again this month, at 134 units lower than the same month last year. Here are the highlights for this month: 

• Average-Sales Prices are weakening, with the 12-month/long-term trend line up 8.64% compared to last year at this time;  and the 3-Month Moving Average is up 5.70% from December last year; 
   
• The Inventory for Resale Homes again fell and is now at 1.5 Months Supply;
   
• Approximately 387 Resale Homes closed in the month, which is about 134 fewer (-25.7%) homes than in 2017; and 109 fewer than last month.
   
• REO/Bank Owned property sales were 3 units (0.8% of total); down from 4 (0.8%) in 2017. 
   
• Short Sale /Pre-Foreclosure property sales were 0 units (0.0% of total); down from 4 (0.8%) in 2017.

The month-end, 30-year-fixed home loan benchmark interest rate is 4.64% (Down quite a bit from the peak of 4.87% last month) according to Freddie Mac; compared to 3.95% for December 2017.

We now come to our Unit-Volume chart that illustrates the short term (in red) and long term (12-month moving average in Blue) trends (shown below): 

Clark County Home Sales - Units Sold Trend December 2018

Both trend-lines are declining significantly. The higher home-loan rates, combined with very low inventory, is making it more difficult to keep the unit-volume numbers as high as they had been.

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

Clark County Home Sales - Average Sales Price Trend December 2018

The short term Average sales price for Clark County is now $387,607; now down about $14,000 from the peak this past summer. This is however, an increase of approximately $20,887 from the same month last year.

Our last set of charts from RMLS show:

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

New Listings, Pending Sales and Closed Sales are consistent with this time of year and going lower. Active Inventory fell slightly again this month. 

The second graph with the Average List and Sales Prices shows new listings and closed sales both lower than the prior month. 

Days on the Market, Average and Median, moved back up which is expected at this time of year.

The latest RMLS published report on the Clark County real estate scene can be found here: RMLS Market Action Report on our main website.

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PS - The real estate market is adjusting to the much higher prices combined with higher loan costs however, this is still a good time to List and Sell Your Home with Our Team; 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 reasonably soon?  Interest rates are still at historically 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

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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.