Why Issaquah Plateau is Growing

Interested in Listing or Buying a property on the Plateau? Attached is a matrix examining different price points that is as MUST READ for prospective buyers and sellers. The results were a bit surprising to me in regards to inventory. This data is pulled from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service for July 2009.

I broke the market into three segments:

*Starter Home – $300k to $500k

**Move Up Home – $500k to $700k

***Starter Castles – $700k and up

Things I Expected

The days on market (DOM) increases for SOLD properties from 3.53 months on Starter Homes to 5.63 months on Move Up Homes. It jumps to a whopping 9.57 months on Starter Castles. The lower priced homes move faster- which is intuitive I believe.

The average dollar per square foot was $198 for SOLD Starter Homes- which is about 9% below the average ACTIVE and EXPIRED/CANCELLED price for that segment. Interestingly, the average discount for a SOLD house in that segment below original list price was 8.1%. Most of the Actives need to drop their price about $20-30k and expect to negotiate the final price another $20-30k below the last list price.

The average Starter Listing that Expires gives up around 5.5 months on the market, while the Move Up Listing Expires around the 6.4 month mark. The listings that quit give up around the 5-6 month mark.

I knew going in that the average dollar per square foot on the Plateau was $200. Sure enough, the Starter average dollar per square foot was $198 and the average dollar per square foot for Move Up Homes was $208.

Things I Didn’t Expect

I don’t know if July was an anomaly- but there is surprisingly little inventory out in the Plateau. There is only 3-4 months worth of inventory in the starter and move up categories. Under 6 months is the traditional measure of a buyer’s market. I am not claiming that it is a buyer’s market on the Plateau- but in July- using the traditional metric- inventory is quite low.

Another good sign- more houses sold in both segments than expired during the month of July.

Last, and this is not shown on the matrix- but the average discount off the last list price was only 3% for both the move up and starter segments. This discount remained steady whether the property had been listed for 30 days, 90 days or even 1 year! There were very few outliers. Houses that are selling are selling within 6% of the last list price with the average being 3% off last list price.