Area 41 of the MLS is from Vancouver Lake to I-5 and from 78th Street to 119th Street. Much of the housing stock in this area was built in the range of 1960 to 1985 on single family lots ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 square feet in area. I chose this range of detached single family houses because in this geographic area there is pretty good uniformity in the houses. I looked at the statistics from the MLS for half year intervals starting in January of 2006 and ending with current listings. (Felida to Lake Shore Graph)

As you can see the blue line is sales prices and the red line is days on the market. After rising in the fist half of 2007, riding the market momentum, average prices dropped significantly (almost 7%). In that same time frame the average days on market statistics rose 20% from 45 days to 54 days. Still, this exposure time is not long and considered healthy. In the second half of 2007 the average days on market rose just over 7%, not a lot. But, look at the currently listed properties. They are not yet sold and have been on the market for an average of 92 days. This is still not an awfully long time. Marketing times of 90 days or less are considered generally healthy. But, by comparison, this 92 days is an increase of over 58%. Of course, as the marketing time continues to increase there will be downward pressure on prices. Unless the days on the market shorten up we can expect prices to fall. The recent list price to sales price ratio has been about 98%. Applying that to the average list price suggests an average sales price of the listing of about $235,000. If that ends up being so, the averaged trend line for sales prices over the last two years for this product category will have been quite flat. Not bad in the face of the recent changes in the national residential real estate market.

Ralph Olsen, Appraiser

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