Seattle Times business reporter
Was June a good month for King County home sales? That depends
on which numbers you pay attention to.The good: Buyers closed on 1,879 houses last month, according to statistics released Tuesday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. It was the largest monthly total since August 2007, and 13.5 percent more closings than the number recorded last June.
The not-so-good: Pending sales — offers accepted by sellers that haven't yet closed — fell 26 percent in June from the same month last year. It was the second month of year-over-year declines after 12 straight monthly gains.
Both sets of numbers were strongly influenced by the expiration of federal tax credits two months ago. Buyers and sellers had to sign contracts by April 30 to qualify for the savings, and many of those deals closed in May and June.
But many observers said the tax credits were effectively stealing demand from future months and predicted that, with the credits no longer an incentive, sales activity was likely to fall off.
Despite that, pending sales of single-family homes in King County in June actually were up a hair — 0.8 percent — from May, the first month the tax credits weren't available.
The median price of houses that sold in King County in June was $383,000, the listing service reported, down 3 percent from June 2009 but the highest figure for any month since last July. The median condo price in June was $242,000, down 2.8 percent from the same month last year.
Closed condo sales were up 9.5 percent from June 2009, but pending sales were down 30 percent.