Home sales up, prices down in Western Washington

Home sales in Western Washington rose in September for the first time in more than a year and a half, but prices declined and there were slightly fewer homes on the market, a real estate consortium reported Monday.

Statistics released by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service indicate a trend toward greater stability, especially in the critical market for single-family houses in the four-county central Puget Sound area, said Glenn E. Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Policy Research at Washington State University.

The figures cover all 16 counties west of the Cascades and three to the east - Kittitas, Grant and Okanogan.

Sales of houses and condominiums in those counties rose nearly 4.1 percent in September compared with the same month in 2007, and nearly 4.2 percent in King County alone. The last monthly increase for the region was 4.8 percent in February 2007.

The median sale price fell last month by 8.3 percent to $295,000 overall compared with September 2007 and by 3.7 percent to $380,315 in King County.

Total active listings at the end of September were 10,889, down by about 1,500 or about 12 percent from a year earlier.

Crellin said the most significant figures he saw in the report were the declines in sales that closed in the central Puget Sound area - 16 percent in King County, 4 percent in Pierce County, 30 percent in Snohomish County and 14 percent in Kitsap County. Overall sales figures also include agreements that await financing.

The statistics show more sales are taking longer to close, reflecting delays in obtaining financing because of the credit squeeze nationally, he said.

"I'm not saying that they're not going to close, they're just taking longer," he said.

The region's overheated real estate market previously has been imbalanced with too many sellers and not enough buyers, so the trend is "ultimately good news for the market generally," Crellin said.

Sellers are less aggressive in trying to cash in at a profit, "taking a more wait-and-see attitude," he said. "I think that's healthy."