The monthly real estate recap

Long time Ballard resident and local Real Estate Broker Sharon Giampietro shares a post on My Ballard every month to keep readers informed about the local real estate market.

Giampietro comes from a long line of realtors and has lived in Ballard for 30 years. She is currently a Broker at Windermere Real Estate in Greenwood.

Check out Giampietro’s recap of how Greater Ballard fared this month below:

The holiday season’s in full swing and it has brought some snow and a substantially lower number of additional real estate listings.

October saw 194 listings added while November saw just 115. To put this in perspective, in November of 2013, 113 listings were added. Simply said, fewer sellers list their homes during these holiday months than at other times during the year.

While the number of additional listings fell, the average sales price climbed from October’s $553,000 up to $581,000 in November. This brings us close to September’s average sales price of $579,000 and represents about a 16.5% rise in our average sales price so far this year. This continued price rise is in part spurred by low inventory (about a 1.4 month supply), low unemployment in Seattle, and the many desirable attributes of our area. (Beach and water access, movie theater, shopping, nightlife, terrific neighborhoods etc).

In November, some buyers found affordable homes by choosing the condo alternative. The Bitter Lake area saw condo homes in the 640-660 square foot range selling for $140,000-$166,000. This averages to about $216-$235 a square foot. In contrast several condos in downtown Ballard and Fremont sold last month for more than twice that per square foot. Overall condo sales were brisk in November with 33 added to the inventory and 27 selling.

New construction seems to be everywhere in our area with 19 new homes added last month and about half of them in Ballard. Everywhere you look in Ballard there we see the addition of modern looking homes that contrast our 1900-1940’s inventory in size, style and layout. These “new kids on the block” are selling for an average price of $769,000, and are in demand.

Interest rates are hovering at about 4% but they won’t stay there forever. Hopefully 2015 will bring the inventory and choice buyers are looking for so they can take advantage of the great rates.

Greater Ballard is Greenwood, Green Lake, Wallingford and other close by neighborhoods identified as “705” in the NWMLS.  All residential and condo numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand and unless noted do not include new construction. Statistics not compiled or published by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.