Dive Brief:
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The Pacific Northwest added the most new inventory per month in June since May 2008, according to a HousingWire analysis of Northwest MLS data. Twenty-three counties added a combined 13,658 new listings during the month.
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One contributor was the slower sales pace expected for June as the summer’s lower levels of competition take the heat off outlying markets. Still, the region’s core areas saw strong demand.
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New listings rose by 7% in June, though total inventory is down 14% year-over-year. The region had a 1.4-month supply of housing inventory for the month, with King County, which includes Seattle, the tightest at 0.84 months.
Dive Insight:
More listings are expected to ease home-price growth in the region, according to a separate HousingWire report.
The metro has seen intense job growth and, with it, housing demand, as tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google have grown their footprints there. For-sale homes in Seattle averaged just 25 days on the market in May, making it one of the country's most competitive housing markets, according to Redfin. Roughly nine in 10 for-sale homes in Seattle end up in bidding wars — the most of any city in the U.S.
Despite forecasts of a summer slowdown, Zillow data puts home prices in Seattle up 14.5% from May 2016 to May 2017. The greater metro region, in turn, saw increases of 12.7% for the period. That month, the city claimed the nation's top spot for home-price growth for the eighth-consecutive month, The Seattle Times reported.
Portland, OR, is seeing similar a trend. Alththough home price growth seems to be slowing, prices there remain well above the national average, according to Oregon Live. The city’s median home price rose to $385,000 in April, up from $370,000 the month before.
Population and income growth in Portland and Seattle are likely to continue, according to the Urban Land Institute’s annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate report. Seattle is projected to see its population soar with its growth rate averaging nearly double that nationally. The test of the market will be whether builders are able to work around land shortages and zoning regulations to keep up with the demand.