The real estate market is healing both around the nation and in the Seattle metropolitan area, according to Standard & Poor’s/Case-Schiller index. Prices increased by 1.8 percent month-over-month in King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties, the fourth straight monthly increase, reports the Seattle Times. Year-over-year, prices were up 1.8 percent from June 2011.
Seattle’s Case-Schiller score for June 2012 was 139.89, which means that housing prices were 39.89 percent higher than they were in January 2000. The lowest score for the area since the housing bubble burst was 128.99 in February of this year. King County saw an 18 percent sales decline for bank-owned homes in the second quarter of this year compared to the first quarter. Sales of foreclosed properties comprised 16 percent of total transactions in the county in April, May and June, down from 21 percent in the previous quarter. And here’s more good news for the county:
- Buyers closed on 2,156 houses last month, the largest number so far in 2012.
- Summer sales volume was up 21 percent compared to one year ago.
- The August median price was $378,000, up by 8 percent from the same month last year.
Nationally, lenders are embracing short sales more readily than they have in the past, evidenced by the fact that short sale closings have risen by 18 percent between January and May, compared to the same period last year.