Here are the January market stats/recap for Whatcom County. I personally feel that these stats are most meaningful with some context and anecdotes, and I prefer big picture so....
Finger on the pulse, I'm feeling like we are still in a fairly similar market as we were last year at this time. Inventory is still low. There's still more buyers than sellers. There's still a lot of people moving to the area, and we're still not building that many houses up here because - well, it's still hard to build houses here.🌲
Interestingly, days on market has creeped up. But I think that's to be expected during the holiday/snow season and I don't think it signifies a market slow down. I got into a multiple offer situation just this week (and won). It's still an intense market for buyers.🔥
So where do we go from here? It feels like we're going nowhere but up. Sure, a recession will hit, but the question is, what impact will it have? Based on what’s happened in past recessions, a recent report by First American argues that the next recession is unlikely to prompt a major downturn in housing. Here's the important part: The growth in home prices seen during the current economic expansion hasn't been fueled by increased access to mortgage credit. It's more about supply and demand. The supply of homes available for sale is very low, pushing prices upward. People who have owned in the last few years now have more equity. Even if their home value drops during a recession, it's less likely that they'll be under water and have to bail, creating that influx of inventory that we saw during the last recession.
Furthermore, Whatcom County's job market is less likely to be impacted than other markets. Think PeaceHealth, WWU, the refineries. We have stable, pseudo-governmental employers, and a lot of tough and innovative small businesses to round it out. We tend to ride the economic waves fairly well here.
If you've made it to the end of this, congratulations. (Nerd alert!) In conclusion, we’ve added 36 listings since this infographic was created (503 active listings at this very moment in time), so spring is coming! ☀️
