With very few new listings, Whatcom County home sales slow significantly in May
Whatcom County’s real estate market slowed significantly in May, as buyers and sellers adjust during the coronavirus pandemic.
Local real estate agents sold 212 houses and condominiums last month, according to the latest data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. That’s 173 fewer homes than in May 2019.
Lack of inventory, rather than lack of buyers, is the big reason for the slowdown. Whatcom County had 338 new listings in May, down 40.6% compared to a year earlier.
The amount of Whatcom inventory supply is less than three months, according to the NWMLS data; a balanced market tends to have six months of inventory.
The median price for those homes sold rose 6.7% year-over-year to $408,250, an indication that fewer first-time home purchases were happening, said Troy Muljat of the Muljat Group Realtors.
Muljat said local real estate has gone into a bit of a holding pattern; sellers in particular are looking for more of a return to normalcy. Right now sellers are not to motivated to sell unless they need to.
“There are still buyers out there, but they have so little to choose from,” Muljat said, noting that new listings that are priced correctly are getting multiple offers.
Muljat expects the market to rebound in the summer if consumer sentiment improves and communities are successful in going through the reopening phases. One attraction is that interest rates are at historic lows.
