Home Sales Drop and Current Real Estate Market Trends

In Pierce County and Tacoma, sales are showing a modest upward trend so far this year when compared to the winter months (which is cyclical and quite a normal trend). Pierce County reported a 30 percent drop compared to the year before. Not only are sales continuing to drop, Pierce county registered a 5.5 percent Home Price dip as compared to March a year ago.

Real Estate Market Trends made both Seattle Newspapers today:

See the Seattle Times article here: Home prices declining, inventory building around Puget Sound

Seattle PI: Seattle single-family homes prices stay steady in March

Check out the vastly differing titles and article content.

Real Estate experts still are claiming the end is near: The local market "has reached bottom -- or pretty darn close" and although inventory continues to grow, so does optimism among buyers, Northwest MLS director Dick Beeson said in a statement.

I think that this is hopeful at best. Add in the difficulty of getting a mortgage plus the recent economic development, you get a bleak outlook for a quick turnaround.

"It's no longer a question of recession or not. Now it's how deep and how long. Workers' pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. Job losses are nearing the staggering level of a quarter-million this year in just three months. "

Check out the rest of the news in this recent AP Economics article: Huge job losses set off recession alarms.