Much of Lakeland Hills is new(er) construction in a planned community with a variety of housing choices and prices, shopping, parks and entertainment. Here you’ll find apartments, condominiums (both attached and detached), along with single family homes.

A large portion of the newest homes … perhaps those built from about 2007 and later … sit on the typical new construction smaller lots, under about 6,500 square feet. Older neighborhoods with homes built in the ‘70’s or so may have yards that are a bit larger.

Because so much of Lakeland Hills is new, prices and sales have been impacted by the real estate downturn with new construction continuing to play a huge role in home sales in the area.

Prices in Lakeland Hills spiraled during the 2005-2007, falling significantly in mid-2008:

As with much of the south King County area (the majority of Lakeland Hills), somewhat due to the difficulty in closing short sales and bank-owned properties which have been a significant part of the area, new construction is starting to pick up, and certainly played an important part of closed sales in 2011.  

Here’s another look at the same information, sorted by type of sale rather than year: 

Considering a move to the area or thinking of selling your Lakeland Hills home? I specialize in the Auburn area — please don’t hesitate to give me a call, just to talk through some of the possibilities. I’m always delighted to be of service!

Here’s a quick look at the numbers:

Who says the economy still not improving!? Compare the numbers from 2008!

The next chart compares year end stats:

I’m jazzed! Look at that nice up-tick in closed sales!

So … what sold in Auburn in December?

Traditional sales are creeping up in number …. a really good thing, but equally good is noting that Bank-Owned property sales are also closing, getting some of those low, low priced homes off the market. I expect to see a gain in short sale property closings in 2012 as some of the big banks are finally getting their acts together and realizing that closing on short sales actually keep prices up a bit higher than foreclosing and then dropping the price even further.

One final quick note: remember that sales that close in a given month probably received offers in the previous month … typically about 45 days prior to the date of closing. Unless we’re talking about short sales, of course, which continue to take about 60 days or more to receive bank approval after an offer is presented to them and then another 45 days to close the transaction.

However, just a few miles southeast of Bellevue lies Maple Valley. Those of us in the area, believe Maple Valley is the best Bellevue suburb! After all, Maple Valley’s affordable prices, idyllic setting, mountain views, top rated and highly desired schools, and mix of new subdivision-style homes and acreage properties make it a logical choice for home ownership.

Maple Valley is located approximately 20 miles (approximately 40 minutes) southeast of downtown Bellevue, or approximately 15 miles from the Issaquah, Lake Sammamish area. A driving coomute to downtown Seattle takes about 50 minutes, while commuting to Tacoma can be a quick 40 minutes or so as well. (It can be confusing — you may have to see a map:)

Thanks to Google Maps

However, if you’re an eastside or Seattle worker, no doubt you’re well acquainted with those much higher housing costs. Maple Valley is perfectly positioned and poised to combat those prices while offering so many similar — and maybe superior — amenities: parks, lakes, golf courses, awesome schools, pleasant commutes, and a small-town persona with friendly faces.

A few interesting demographics:

• Maple Valley consists of an area approximately 5.6 miles square
• Most business are independently owned — no big box stores, although they’re not far away in the adjoining small city of Covington
• Population of just over 20,000 people
• Of all the residences in Maple Valley, 80% are homeowners
• Tahoma School District

Now then, why Buy in Maple Valley? Here’s a bit of information about houses currently on the market.  

So what does this all mean? Well … you’re likely to purchase a home that’s between 2000and about 2300 square feet, priced between $289,000 and $331,000. It’s also likely that you’ll be working directly with the seller or with new construction. Although it’s not obvious from the stats, I can tell you from experience that if you purchase new construction (and you can see that there’s a LOT of new construction in Maple Valley), you’ll be in a subdivision of like homes, with smaller lot sizes. If you step into homes that are older than about 10 years, you’re more likely to be on a lot size of better than a quarter-acre.

Click here for information about Summer Home Sales in Maple Valley.

Here’s how things looked over the summer:

Of interest, especially, was the little 380 square foot cabin right on Lake Wilderness that sold for $175,000. Gorgeous beachfront! Not to slight the 6,280 square foot bank-owned beauty on five acres, of course. It sold, unfinished, for $466,000. There are some real bargains out here!

Of the 156 homes, here’s how they broke down as far as type of sale:

It’s certainly felt like a much busier summer than we’ve seen for the past couple of years. Doing a quick check for the previous couple of years, it does appear that we’ve accomplished a bit of a gain: The summer of 2010 closed 148 single family home sales; 2009 closed 112! Small gain in 2011 — and I’m happy with that. The real estate market just needs to keep chugging away!

Spring in Auburn!

I’m going to loosely define “Spring” as March 1st through today, June 15th– our period of incredible rainfall and cold weather. I know Summer doesn’t officially start for another week or so, but I’m calling it now …

Here’s how I see it:

A total of 333 Residential transactions closed, consisting of

276 single family homes
  32 condominiums
  25 manufactured homes.

For Single Family Homes, the significant “averages” looked like this:

According to an Associated Press article quoted in my local Seattle Times, new home sales so far this year across the nation accounted for just 5% of all sales. Historically, they say, new home sales make up about 15% of all sales.

Around my Auburn, Washington area home, I can count at least 10 new construction developments just starting up. Maybe more than ten if I give it a bit more thought. The point is, around here new construction is selling. Why? Well,  builders are savvy in their marketing and pricing, selling more homes than short sales during this brief snapshot.

Since January 1st, here’s the breakdown of what’s on the market or sold in Auburn, WA by type of sale. Note that new construction closed sales during these last 90 or so days were about 15% of the total — right where we should be, apparently.

What’s also interesting to note is the difference in price between bank-owned homes and all other houses on the market. Gee, do you think banks are dumping prices to get their foreclosed-on home inventory sold?

Interested in new construction? Come to Auburn, Washington. Houses are being built in our area … and selling too!

In 2010, 734 homes in Auburn, Washington sold, with the assistance of real estate agents, for an average of $282,429 after being on the market for an average of 142 days, selling for 92.5% of the price at which the home was originally listed.

Of the homes sold, 127 were reported as having been Bank or REO (real estate owned) properties. For clarification, REO properties could include those that are corporate owned, bank owned, HUD, Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac properties. An additional 53 homes were reported as short sales.

The information in this report and all charts and graphs were manually compiled by Gabrielle Nemes from information gathered from the NW Multiple Listing Service. Included are all residential properties with Auburn addresses in either King or Pierce counties.

So … as of today, November 10, 2010, here’s what the Auburn Real Estate Market reports for residential sales … all Auburn addresses both in King and Pierce Counties:

We’re holding pretty close to previous months in that about 46% of closed sales are the result of distress situations, a bit higher than most of King County.

To analyze this a bit further, it’s necessary to turn to the official “statistics” as provided by the NWMLS. The following charts report only on the Auburn area as defined by the MLS. This generally includes Algona, Pacific and the overall Auburn area including only King County addresses that are east of West Valley Highway, but extend all the way through the East Hill area up to Crest Air Park, and south into parts of the Enumclaw plateau. It’s a bit skewed, but gives a reasonable representation of the area.

Looking at the chart, I can see that it continues to take almost 120 days to obtain an offer even for well-priced homes, much longer than in previous years. Considering that interest rates are phenomenally low, to some extent I can only surmise that Buyers remain hesitant to make offers — or are making very low, unacceptable offers — due to the continued slow force of our local economy. 

However, for properties that actually make it all the way to closing (SOLD!), the time frame is even longer — 169 days! Look back up in this post to the previous snapshot of Auburn to see, however, that 26 of the homes that did sell were either bank or short sale listings. Those take a while!

On a personal note, I saw a considerable uptick in pending offers for my own business during the month of October. Maybe it’s just me? Here’s the chart comparing the actual number of homes that had pending offers — down a bit from September.

Finally, as expected, we continue to be in a solid “Buyer’s Market” in Auburn — it’ll take a little over 11 months to clear all the current inventory of homes — assuming nothing new is listed, of course.

As usual, if you have any questions about this information, or would like to see similar information for the area immediately around your own home, please let me know. I’m always delighted to be of help!

However, Foreclosure Radar does offer some interesting charts and graphs for foreclosure data. Interesting enough that I thought I’d post them here and then watch the stats for a couple of months to see how they compare, overall, to the stats I run and am able to gather off the NWMLS (NorthWest Multiple Listing Service).

So, with a bit of hesitation, but why not? going on, here are the pertinent September 2010 foreclosure statistics as posted by Foreclosure Radar for Auburn, WA.

Auburn,WA – Foreclosure Filings

Foreclosure Filings is meant to display the number of Notice of Trustee Sales that were filed. A Notice of Trustee Sale is filed no sooner than 30 days after the homeowner receives a Notice of Default.

Auburn,WA – Foreclosure Inventories

Foreclosure Radar explains this chart as:” Preforeclosure inventory is an estimate of the number of properties that have had a Notice of Default filed against the property, but have not yet been Scheduled for Sale. The Scheduled for Sale inventory indicates those properties that have had a Notice of Trustee Sale filed, but have not yet been sold or had the sale cancelled. The Bank Owned (REO) inventory indicates the number of properties that have been sold Back to the Bank at the trustee sale, and which the bank has not yet resold to another party.”

Auburn,WA – Time to Foreclose

There’s an error in the explanation for this chart, but even so I found it a bit disturbing. The Time to Foreclose illustrated here is meant to display the number of days after the Notice of Trustee Sale is filed before the bank actually forecloses. Statutory guidelines indicate that a minimum of 90 days must occur after the the Notice is recorded. As a agent that assists homeowners in selling short sales, I can tell you that in nearly every instance I’ve handled thus far, at least one auction postponement has occurred. What I believe this chart illustrates is that most homeowners are either unsuccessful in selling a short sale, or that they just didn’t try. These are, overall, very tight to that 90 day window!

Here’s the explanation from ForeclosureRadar: “Time to Foreclose—The average number of days between the filing of the Notice of Trustee’s Sale and the final sale at auction for foreclosure sales that occurred during the specified month. Time to Resell—The average number of days between the final sale at auction and when the property was resold by the bank or 3rd party.

As seen here, researching data from multiple sources helps provide a more complete view of what’s really happening in the world of foreclosures and short sales. Be sure to check in here regularly for updates based on real, locally produced, data.

As always, if you are behind in your payments now, or anticipate being so in the near future, please give me a call. A short sale is often the best solution to avoid foreclosure. I can help.