Year in Review
If one were to look at the Eastside real estate market for 2020 and not look at any other new stories for the year, they would never know we have been in a pandemic for nearly ten months. All real estate is local, and the Seattle and Eastside areas enjoy a unique profile of burgeoning technology companies which create a relatively stable employment base. His growth in the tech sector and ancillary businesses has fueled a major construction boom. these facts along with the lowest mortgage rates in history have led area buyers to feel confident enough to continue to purchase homes in spite of other distractions in their lives. Add in the fact that limited inventory, especially on the Eastside, creates a perfect storm in which our area is second only to I Phoenix in annual appreciation growth for the US. The Seattle metro area comes in at about 9% appreciation slightly behind Phoenix which is at 10%.
The lack of inventory on the Eastside is notable. As of the first of the year, there were only two weeks of inventory available, while in Seattle there were 6 weeks of inventory. this disparity of inventory between the two areas has been growing over the past four months. While the small numbers of homes and condominiums available to buy may partially represent a seasonal slowdown, we see no signs that inventory will grow substantially in the near future.
