Demand is high for attractive inventory

Demand is high for attractive inventory. It seems impossible that with all that has transpired in the housing market that there would actually be a demand for inventory. Over the last few weeks as my clients have been combing the area for first time homes they have been disappointed with the available inventory out there. It is getting harder and harder to find a good home for many reasons one is that some sellers are deciding to just not lower their prices instead deciding to just take their homes off the market another reason is the distresses inventory out there. To illustrate my point, homes are split into 3 categories, short sales, bank owned and free and clear. Based on today's NWMLS data King County has 7,554 homes currently for sale. Of those homes 1, 433 are listed as short sales and 653 are Bank Owned properties the rest 5,468 are free and clear. That makes 28% of the available homes or 1 in 3 home on the market is distressed in some way. This leads me to the conclusion that if you have a good home priced well you should find a ready and willing buyer fairly quickly. This is not an isolated event here is a link to the WSJ with the article titled Slim Pickings Are Latest Headache for Home Sales by Nick Timiraos discussing the problem nation wide with dwindling inventory. Here are some more real estate links:

• Rhonda Porter at The Mortgage Porter talks about shopping rates online
• Realtor.com shows how jobs reports effect interest rates.
• Zillow notes that Seattle has 2 of the top 10 hottest neighborhoods
• Finally some good news on the economy front for local businesses Inc. Magazine lists 16 Washington business in the top 500 fastest growing.