Will more hours of sun lead to more homes for sale? Brokers are optimistic

By many measures housing prices in the Tacoma area are maintaining their upward trajectory.

In February 2017, the median single-family home price for Pierce County for closed sales was under $300,000.

In Tuesday’s latest home sales report from Northwest Multiple Listing Service, that same measure of real estate was at $325,000, with just 1.15 months of inventory.

Median condo prices in the county were $220,000.

The industry and those looking for housing in the area hope the coming days and weeks will bring more houses onto the market in addition to a time change.

The arrival of daylight saving time “triggers a burst in new listings,” said J. Lennox Scott, chairman and CEO of John L. Scott Real Estate, in Tuesday’s news release.

That would be Sunday, March 11, for those of you waiting to buy or sell.

Ken Anderson, president/owner and designated broker at Coldwell Banker Evergreen in Olympia, also added a hopeful spin to those not happy with current inventories.

“The reality is, we have an 8-year high in the number of homes coming to market in Thurston County,” he said.

Thurston’s median closed home sale price for single-family residences was $297,000; condos were at $190,250.

King County is up to $649,950 for median single-family closed home sale price; condos were at $415,000.

NWMLS noted that three areas — Mercer Island, Bellevue west of Interstate 405, and Kirkland-Bridle Trails — reported median prices of more than $1 million for single-family homes.

Some areas in Pierce County are more posh than others. The Gig Harbor area remains the most expensive for real estate, with the median home selling in February for $465,000. That’s a nearly 17 percent increase from a year ago, when homes cost just $397,800.

Fife, Milton, Edgewood and Sumner homes had the biggest price increase, with homes there up by nearly $113,000 in a year, to a median price of nearly $439,000.

If you’re looking for a bargain, shop in South Tacoma, where homes sold in February for a median $224,225. Homes there last year sold for less than $200,000.

Real estate analytics firm CoreLogic told The News Tribune via email Tuesday that the Tacoma-Lakewood metro area saw a 12 percent increase in its 12-month home price index in single family homes, measuring from January 2017 to January 2018. The index is based on public record and home-sale trends.

Our prices, though, were considered to be at normal values as of January 2018 data, while almost half of the top 100 residential housing markets across the nation were overvalued, CoreLogic said in its report. Notable cities with overvalued real estate, according to CoreLogic, include Denver, Las Vegas, New York and Miami.

The company noted the short supply of affordable, entry-level housing nationwide, which makes it more difficult everywhere for first-time home buyers to enter the market.

All of this comes on the heels of RentCafe’s February report listing downtown Tacoma as one of the fastest-gentrified ZIP codes nationwide since 2000, one of only two on the West Coast.

What about rents? It’s a mixed bag in Pierce County.

Tacoma one-bedroom apartment rents are considered the third cheapest among 17 cities in the Puget Sound region by apartment listing website Zumper, at $1,080 per month. However, the cost of a two-bedroom apartment soared by nearly 16 percent, to $1,330 per month, Zumper said in a recent report.

This story was originally published March 7, 2018 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Will more hours of sun lead to more homes for sale? Brokers are optimistic."