Monday NW Seattle Real Estate Market Update | May 3rd, 2021

Video Transcript:

Welcome to week 60 of our Monday Market Update. Inventory levels continue to rise. We currently have 145 active listings in Northwest Seattle. And while we are still seeing lots of multiple offers, the number of offers on each listing is going down. This is to be expected and sellers, nothing that you need to be concerned about. We did wanna share a short story from over the weekend.

Right. So everything we do in our listing process, has a purpose. For instance, we want great photos to attract buyers online, in order to get them through your front door. And before going on the market, we want every stitch of information that a buyer would need to make a decision on your home. We do this in order to protect our sellers, and to answer questions that buyers will have so that they feel comfortable moving forward with an offer.

And Sandra, we don’t do things just to do it. Everything we do is geared to produce a result for our sellers, either in more offers, shorter market time, or most importantly, a higher sales price

Right. So I showed a home on Sunday and they are looking at offers today. There’s no home inspection report for us to review. They did perform a sewer scope, and this gets to the heart of my story. They provided a sewer video, but no report that goes along with it. I am not a plumber. My clients are not plumbers. So my question to that listing broker is, how is that video useful for us to answer the question what is the condition of the line? Well, it’s not. It’s not useful at all. So I was really curious about the company that did the scope and I called and chatted with them, and basically they will do the sewer scope of free. And if the home owner wants a report, then it will cost them $275 which is the average price for a sewer scope and report. So his reasoning for doing that scope for free, is that if there is a problem with the line, he’s the first one there to write up a bid and potentially get that job

Sandra, that is a brilliant business model, but it doesn’t work for us. This brings up another can of worms. Sellers never hire a company to scope the line who also does your repairs. You don’t want someone who is looking for a project. We only use companies that will scope the line and just report what they see. They’re never looking for a project.

Right. And the companies we use also provide a written report that clearly states the condition of the line. We’re not left hanging with just a video that none of us can adequately decipher. So our buyers ended up not wanting to move forward with an offer. It just wasn’t the right house. However, if it had been the right house, we would have had a really hard time putting forth a great offer for that seller. Because we had too many questions that were unanswered about the condition of the home.

Buyers of our listings don’t have this problem since we provide all of that information upfront. let’s do a quick recap of what’s happened this past week in Northwest Seattle

We had 77 new homes come on the market. 66 went pending and we had 53 homes that closed for an average price per square foot of $554 which that’s what it’s been kind of averaging for the last few weeks. Interest rates have remained the same. They are at 3.125% for conforming and 3% for jumbo.

Everybody have a great week happy Cinco de mayo, and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. Thanks for watching this video, please like it, and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel.