Bellingham and Whatcom County Pending Ratios

As Realtors, the question we are most often asked is, “How is the market” The information that follows is our way of answering that question with logic rather than intuition.

We feel the more houses that sell relative to the total number of houses available, the more active the market is. In other words, if there are 10 houses for sale and 2 of them have sales contracts signed, that is not as active a market as if 5 of the 10 have sales contracts signed. When we track homes sold, we are actually 30 to 45 days behind the market because it takes about that long to close after agreement is reached on a contract. So, we track “pending sales” - those homes that buyers are in the process of buying. Every week we track the number of homes available for sale relative to the number of homes currently under sales contract. From this we know the percentage of available homes that have “pending” sales. The higher the percentage, the more active the market.

To provide a quick visual indicator of market activity, we chart these percentages every week. If the line heads up, the market is heating up. If the line goes down, that’s what the market is doing. We don’t pay a lot of attention to weekly bumps up or down—we are looking for the trend.

Pending Ratio Market Updates . . .

August 16th, 2019

The Whatcom County Market is Active!

by Fawn Morgan

If you have been following the local real estate market you know it's active and inventory is low. If you are thinking of selling now is the time! The number of real estate signs you see in yards can be deceiving as to the number of homes actually for sale WITHOUT offers on them. If you are seeing new signs around your …

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June 28th, 2019