New Pending Sales for Olympia WA Area Homes for Week Ending 9/11/11

Pending sales were down a bit for this week ending 9/11/11 - and that likely is the result of a fairly common pattern for real estate sales in the Olympia, WA area. Labor Day weekend often is slow for real estate activity while people enjoy some camping, hiking, picnics, and a last family fling before school begins again. And then of course, those final preparations to get the kids successfully back to school intervenes for a day or two; school begins and parents take a brief breather to regroup and get ready to continue their house hunt.

The drop in numbers was not huge - we still saw 39 new pending sales for this week, using criteria to include new pending sales in the greater Olympia area, excluding manufactured homes.

The breakdown of those 39 pending sales shows the following price categories:

List price under $200,000 - 13 pending sales

List price $200,001 - $300,000 - 18 pending sales

List price $300,001 - $400,000 - 5 pending sales

List price over $400,000 - 3 pending sales

These numbers indicate that, again, the huge bulk of new pending sales are happening in the under $300,000 category, with only a scattering of pendings above that point. And no new pending sales over the $500,000 mark. Certainly this seems to reflect the price bracket where most buyers qualify for mortgage loans and/or feel comfortable with payment amounts.

Now - my forecast is for some increases to the new pending sales numbers when I look at them for week ending 9/18/11. Come back by to see if I'm right!