Home sale prices continue to decline in February in Puget Sound area

Home sale prices in King County continued their long slide in February, according to numbers released today by the broker-owned Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

The median sale price of a single-family house that closed last month was $375,000, down from $382,500 in January and $429,900 in February 2008.

The Eastside saw the greatest year-over-year drop — 18.5 percent — while Shoreline, Lake Forest Park and Kenmore experienced the smallest decline, 7.1 percent.

The number of sales that closed last month in the county was down 42 percent from a year earlier, while the number pending sales — offers that have been accepted but haven't closed — slid 21 percent.

But closed sales were down only slightly from January's total, and pending sales were up.

The median price for a closed King County condo sale last month was $257,200, down from $279,750 in January and $289,000 12 months earlier.

In Snohomish County, prices for single-family homes dropped 12.1 percent compared with February 2008, while condo prices actually increased 4.1 percent.

For all 19 Western and Central Washington counties served by the listing service, however, the picture was a little brighter in February. While down compared with a year earlier, the median sale price for a single-family home was up 2.5 percent from January, the listing service said.