The Total Eclipse

There was absolutely zero traffic this morning when driving to my Monday morning meeting. Like, I mean, no one, nowhere. Not less traffic, but no traffic at all. Instead we had people standing in front of their homes, in the parks and on the sports fields, staring at the sun with their NASA approved eclipse glasses on. I had a neighbor selling those viewing glasses for $25 a pair too. It felt funny driving down an empty road being used to sitting in traffic, trying to find alternate routes to cut down driving time. Today, nada. All roads wide open.

My meeting was supposed to start at 10am, but instead we were all standing outside the office in Bella Bottega taking turns on the one pair of eclipse glasses we had. The people from Coho Café were outside too, as well as the Bartell’s employees. Weird lighting, it felt cooler and then it was done. Months of fuss and huff. Oregon is going to be in for the traffic jam of a lifetime as those one million plus eclipse tourists are trying to head home.

Didn’t work this weekend. Spent it with my family in Eastern Washington wining and buying canning fruit. So, my only thing to share was that I now have 21 pints of peach preserves in my freezer. I didn’t even open my email, so I had not looked at the July resale reports until this morning. As I glanced the numbers it looks like all the rumors of the summer slow down not being a slowdown at all is real. Did we have less closed sales that past few months? Oh yes, but depending on the zip that I am looking at, the prices ended going up instead of down, or even staying flat.

Looking at Redmond zip codes, the residential closed sales went down by -24% in 98052 totaling at 53 closed sales.  For 98053 we went down by -38% (25 closed sales) in 98053 compared to July 2016. However, looking at the prices, we have gone up by 23% since in 98052 in a year, and by 13% in 98053. The inventory is low, but as buyers still need homes the prices are driven up by the fact that the demand is way higher than the supply available. The median price for a home in Redmond (98052) is now $880,000, The median, not average. That’s quite crazy.

As I work with investors looking for condos, I will do a quick review on the condo market as well. 52 condos we sold in Redmond in July. The median price was $417,000, and looking at the YTD the condo prices have gone up by 13% past 12 months. As more condos are built in the Redmond Downtown area, condo sales have gone up by 26%.

Let me know if you want to know your numbers!

Conclusion. Market is as hot as the summer has been, and the prices keep climbing. This is no news anymore. I have no excitement to offer as there is no change in sight for now. Will it change some day? I’m sure it will but I do not see it happening without a major change in our market, meaning the general growth of the entire area, not just home prices.