New evidence of a real estate market turnaround?

The big news in the Madison Park real estate market last month was the report by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (MLS) that the median price of Seattle homes sold in January was actually higher than in the same month a year earlier. For the city as a whole, this represented a 2.63% increase over the past year (houses and combos combined). It is the first time in almost two years that there has been a year-over-year increase in Seattle’s residential property values. The rest of King County did not fare as well, however, with home values continuing their downward trend.

But how did prices hold up in our neighborhood? Madison Park itself is a market that’s a bit too small for year-to-year median price comparisons to be meaningful (seven total home sales in January 2009 and only five this year). But for our general area of the City (MLS Area 390, which also includes Capitol Hill, Montlake, Madison Valley, Madrona, and Leschi), the news was pretty good. There was a modest 2.1% increase in value between January last year and this. This improvement, however, perhaps has more to do with a year over year change in the mix of sales (houses versus condos) than a real move up in home values.

Nevertheless, it’s a good start to 2010. Whether this welcome news means we’re on an upward trajectory will only become evident when we’ve got a few more months of sales data in hand. It’s just possible, however, that for our area of Seattle—like for the rest of the City—the downward slope of real estate values has been arrested. At minimum, the rate of decline seems to have abated.

Thanks to Bryan Tagas for providing this article. To read more, click here to see the full piece on his website.

For more information on Madison Park real estate, please contact Rob LeRoy at eXp Realty at 206.883.6668, or by e-mail at rob.leroy@exprealty.com