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Hi, I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Welcome to my October 2023 Market Update SPOOOOOKY report! For several months, I’ve been reporting on the slow and steady increase in home sale prices, and that, if done correctly, you can expect to sell your home quickly and for a good price when you put your home on the market. It’s been true, and it continues to be true. At the same time, while prices are going up, the number of homes sold has remained sluggish for several months. And now that the summer sale season is officially over, it’s becoming clear just how strange this year has been. Consider these two graphs, which show data for single family homes in King County for nearly 11 years, basically starting in January 2013 and going through September of this year. And while I present data from King County, these trends that I’m going to show you hold true for many of the counties in the Greater Seattle area, and even beyond. So don’t think that this is somehow exclusive to only King County. The BLUE line represents the median single family home sales price, and you can see how it’s been steadily increasing at a pretty predictable rate. And you can see the annual cycle of activity in the data for ‘Closed Sales’, that’s the ORANGE line. Notice that, in most of the previous years, the peak market activity took place around late spring or early summer, with about 2,500 to 3,000 homes sold during those peaks. It’s a bit harder to pinpoint it on the graph, but most of the sales in September of each of the past years were about 2,000 to 2,500 homes. And then there’s 2023. No, you don’t have to adjust your glasses or clean your screen – that huge drop-off is real! The month with the highest number of sales this year reported only about 2,000 homes sold. In September of this year, we only had about 1,400 homes sold in King County. That’s about 23% fewer homes sold this September compared to last September. And if you compared it to the September before that, meaning, 2021, the drop is 47%! That is just incredible! By the way, if you want to look at all this information and read my report at your pace and leisure, you’ll find all this information in my October newsletter, available online and for download, for free, at Weisbarth.com/Newsletter, that’s Weisbarth.com/Newsletter. And, as I’ve been reporting, throughout all this slow market activity, home prices have pretty much held steady. With such low inventory of homes for sale, you’d expect to see great pressure on the market that would push prices up much faster. This is where the higher mortgage interest rates are helping keep the appreciation manageable, almost perfectly countering the effects of the low inventory. So, I think that, in many way, the real surprise here is just how much demand we still have, despite the high mortgage interest rates, which really speaks volumes about the kind of pent up demand that we have in our area. And it also bring up the question about what will happen once mortgage interest rates drop – which, most if not all expert agree, will happen sooner or later. Will lower mortgage interest rate bring back to the market a lot of buyers, which will increase the demand so much that prices will start rising fast again? It certainly sounds plausible. Or maybe the inventory of homes for sale will then also increase, as seller feel more comfortable listing their homes, which will then help keep the price increase in check. This too sounds plausible. What will actually happen? Well, only time will tell. For now, if you are looking to sell, here’s what you need to know: we still have more buyers than sellers. In fact, waaay more buyers than sellers. But that doesn’t mean that you can be sloppy about how you list your home. Understanding and following the proper marketing principles is absolutely critical, if you want to get a better a outcome from your home sale. If you do things correctly, without cutting corners, you can 100% expect a good sale, fast and for a good price. So, if you or anyone you know who is looking to buy a home or sell their home, please refer them to me and my team at Weisbarth & Associates by phone, email or fill out a form on our website. My team and I are in the top 1% of all brokers in the state of Washington. We reached this level because we know and understand how the market works, how the system here works, how to implement the correct marketing principles, how buyers and sellers think and see the world. And we have the numbers to prove that our success is not just a fluke, but rather based on sound planning and well tested strategies. More than that, we make sure to educate our clients about all this too, so that they can make correct and informed decisions. The best way to reach me is by phone at 206-779-9808, that’s 206-779-9808. And remember that we donate a substantial portion of our income from each sale to the kids at Childhaven, so your business and referrals help the kids at Childhaven, so you get a good deed out of it too! Please remember to like, subscribe and follow for more great insights, charts and tips on my monthly vlog, and read our monthly newsletter at Weisbarth.com/Newsletter. I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Have a wonderfully spoooooky Halloween, and I’ll see you next month!

Hi, I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Welcome to my August 2023 Market Update report. How is a seller to know what to think during this murky period of real estate? On the one hand, inventory is down, which means buyers have fewer choices. That means it should be easier to sell. But on the other hand, higher interest rates and other uncertainties seem to make buyers pickier and to resist getting into huge bidding wars. The result, even with our lower inventory, is that new listings and sales remain sluggish. While median prices have meandered down in July 2023 relative to June 2023, it remains to be seen whether this is a trend, or just the normal, seasonal market fluctuation, affected by the higher interest rates, vacation time, people having fun in the sun, etc. Most likely, it’s a combination of all of the above. The good news, if you want to sell, is that there is a pathway that leads to a great outcome, namely: selling faster and selling for more money. Consider this graph: What I’m showing here is the final sale price as a percentage of the original asking price. Meaning, if your listing price was a million dollars, and you got a million dollars, then you are 100%. If you got more than a million dollars then you’re more than 100%. And, of course, if you got less than a million dollars, then you are below 100%. Make sense? From the summer of 2022 through March of 2023 – about nine months – sellers in Seattle and King County sold their homes for less than their asking prices, sometimes by as much as 5% less. In our area, with median home prices in the $800k range, 5% can be $40,000 – that’s a LOT of money, and that’s just for the median price! But then, starting in March of this year, sellers starter receiving at least their asking price. You can see this trend in the graph, where the line was below 100% for months, but is now consistently holding steady right on or above the asking price. And this is true even for July 2023, even though overall median prices dropped relative to June 2023. By the way, if you want to look at all this information and read my report at your pace and leisure, you’ll find all this information in my August newsletter, available online and for download, for free, at Weisbarth.com/Newsletter, that’s Weisbarth.com/Newsletter. What does all this mean? First, the market has stabilized. That’s good news and it is a big deal. Second, despite it being a strong sellers’ market, which it still very much is, if you want to maximize the sale of your home, the fundamentals of marketing are still very important. Things such as: Preparing and presenting your home in an appealing way Pricing the home correctly Understanding the buyers’ psychology Knowing where and how to reach those buyers Deal negotiations and so on. All these things matter a lot. In fact, none of these steps can be skipped, or you risk getting results that you may not like, such as taking longer to sell and selling your home for less than what it’s really worth. The other thing, if you want to maximize your home sale, is that you just can’t take the buyer’s for granted anymore. Just a few short years ago buyers would pretty much jump on anything that the market presented to them, and throw money at it, sometime without enough thought. Well, no longer! Buyers today are picky. And who can blame them? If you’re going to pay so much money for a home, and have a large monthly mortgage payment because of the higher interest rates, you’d be picky too! Fair? I think so. So, if you or anyone you know is looking to buy a home or sell their home, please refer them to the Weisbarth & Associates team by phone, email or fill out a form on our website. Our team will make sure that you are educated and prepared correctly. And when you refer someone, tell them that just because we meet and talk doesn’t mean that they are obligated to work with us – there’s absolutely NO obligation! To be honest, all of our clients work with us not out of any sense of obligation, but because they think that we’re the best suited to represent them on their home purchase or home sale, truly! The best way to reach me is by phone at 206-779-9808, that’s 206-779-9808. And remember that your business and referrals help the kids at Childhaven, so you get a good deed out of it too! Please remember to like, subscribe and follow for more great insights, charts and tips on my monthly vlog, and read our monthly newsletter at Weisbarth.com/Newsletter. I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Have a great rest of your summer and I’ll see you next month!

Hi, I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Welcome to my July 2023 Market Update report. I usually try to avoid being publicly critical of media reports. Lots of people do it, and it’s easy and can be fun, but it’s not what I want to be known for. At the same time, when reporters don’t do their job, or when media outlets, who we depend on to deliver accurate news, put their financial and other self-interests before those of the public that they serve, I think it’s the right thing to call them on it. Last month the Seattle Times came out with two headlines that I felt had to be addressed. One I already did in my vlog from last month. But in some ways, the other headline that came out on June 23rd, is even more misleading. That headline reads: “Homeowners in Washington lose more equity than any other state as market cools.” This headline was then picked up by other media outlets in and out of state. Now, this headline conjures images of hordes of distressed homeowners, whose home values have fallen so far that they are now underwater, yet trapped in mortgages they can’t escape. It might remind you of the Great Recession, when – as the article itself even dares to point out and compare to – about a third of Washington homeowners were, in fact, underwater on their mortgages. But if you read the rest of the article, you quickly realize this headline is just fearmongering and totally misleading. How many homeowners in our state are underwater right now, you might ask? During the Great Recession it was about 33%. So now is perhaps 15%? 20%? 25% or more? No! It is a mere 2%. You heard that right: Two percent. And consider that at any given time, a small fraction of homeowners are underwater, even when the market is booming. Meaning, that the price drops last year may not even be the cause of these homeowners to be in distress. Now that’s statewide. How about in Seattle? Well, in Seattle, just 0.7% of homeowners are underwater on their mortgages. That’s right – less than 1 percent. As Yoda might say, “Time to panic, this is not.” Now, of course, if you’re one of the people who is underwater, that probably doesn’t feel very good, I get that. But this headline is stoking an awful lot of anxiety considering it only applies to a small fraction of homeowners, and many of them might have been in distress no matter what. Now, the media is in the business of selling news, and headlines like this sell news. I get that. But I really think that it’s fair for us, the consumers, to demand better from our media outlets, really! So let’s look at the facts, again, most of this you’ve heard me say multiple times in the past. Last year, the market peaked in the spring, after an uncharacteristic acceleration of home prices. The market was red hot and out of control. Then, a combination of bad news and market uncertainties – inflation, war in Ukraine, gas prices, and interest rates, to name a few – caused the market to hit the brakes. Then, starting in January of this year, the market reset, returning to its original trajectory of a steady, if somewhat slower, upward climb. Consider these statistics: Last year in June of 2022, the median sales price of residential homes in King County was $925,000. In June of this year - after the price drops - it was already back up to $938,000 – so we are up 1.4% from last June, and still climbing. Likewise, in Seattle, the median price of single-family homes in June of 2022 was $965,000. This year, it’s moving upward after its earlier decline, and last month it reached $920,000. So we’re only 4.7%, below the last June’s prices. However, the current trajectory will bring it back to its peak within a couple of months or so. In this chart I drew a straight, horizontal line from the datapoints for June of last year in both datasets – Seattle is the DOTTED ORANGE LINE , and King County is in DOTTED BLUE LINE . You can easily see how the median sale prices for single-family homes in King County and in Seattle have been steadily increasing since January of this year. In fact, as I noted earlier, at the current rate of appreciation, median prices are likely to reach the peak prices from last year, and perhaps even surpass them, in the near future. And, just to be clear, these trends hold true in other counties and cities in our area. By the way, if you want to look at all this information and read my report at your pace and leisure, you’ll find all this information in my July newsletter, available online and for download, for free, at Weisbarth.com/Newsletter, that’s Weisbarth.com/Newsletter. So, who, you might wonder, is affected by this supposed “loss of equity”? The only people who are really affected are those who bought at the very height of the peak sales prices last year and need to sell their home now. As you might imagine, that is a very, very small slice of the population. For all the rest of the homeowners in Seattle, King County, and elsewhere, your equity is fine. If you need to, you can sell whenever you want and make a very nice profit, truly! So, now that you have the facts, please help spread the word to others, so that we don’t let this kind of fearmongering scare people. And please reach out to your local media outlet and ask them to do better. We deserve it, don’t you think? If you know anyone who is considering buying or selling their home this year, please send them this video or refer them to us by phone, text, email, or fill out the ‘referral’ form on our website at weisbarth.com/refer. My team and I have developed systems, plans and strategies to make sure that our clients maximize their results from their home purchase, or home sale, and we have the numbers to prove it! The best way to reach me is by phone at 206-779-9808, that’s 206-779-9808. Please remember to like, subscribe and follow for more great insights, charts and tips on my monthly vlog, and read our monthly newsletter at Weisbarth.com I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. See you next month!