Price Trend Graphs for Mercer Island Real Estate

As the longest summer in real estate history drags on, I turn again to our local real esate market and ask: what’s up?

Inventory, For One Thing

Inventory is certainly up. It’s been going up since January.There are over 200 houses on the market now, versus around 60 in the holiday lull and 100 last fall.

Prices

List price per square foot for houses is slightly down; sale price is slightly up. Condo price per square foot is all over the map.

Sale price as a percentage of list prices were 95.5% (read down the post for MI data) in June and July, a little lower than the average in the region. That’s pretty common for more expensive areas, but it could also be that the large number of homes on the market give buyers some negotiating power.

Mortgage Rates Are Also Up

And the credit markets are still screwed up, which means mortgage rates are up.

I got these charts from Redfin, which just released a page of market data for every neighborhood, city and zip. Here’s the one for Mercer Island real estate. These are the most current and accurate pricing charts out there, in my view, but full disclosure: I work at Redfin, and I’m a real estate data junkie.

Bonus Link: I-90’s Reversible Bulge

Vintage Seattle’s done another post on our own I-90, recalling the days of the reversible bulge, with a link to video news coverage of I-90 sinking in the 1990 storms. That’s a must watch- and must watch again.

Check out the comments on that post for personal histories of driving the bulge, and see a few more from Surrounded By Water readers here.