The Seattle and Puget Sound housing inventory numbers for July 2009 show that the real estate market is continuing to become more balanced. In the heat maps below red indicates a seller’s market, green indicates a buyer’s market, and yellow indicates a balanced market.
(Click on the map to see a larger image.)
A seller’s market is generally defined as 0 to 3 months worth of remaining inventory, meaning the time it would take to sell everything on the market if no new homes were listed, while a buyer’s market is generally seen as 6 months or more.
(Because of the traditionally high real estate activity level and shorter market times in the Puget Sound area, some people feel that a buyer’s market for Seattle area real estate starts at under 6 months of remaining inventory.)
There were some trade-offs, notably the Redmond and Sammamish plateau markets moving from a buyer’s to a balanced market, while the south Bellevue and Issaquah regions made the opposite shift.
