The market is balancing out, but it isn’t a buyer’s market yet.
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We just got the latest statistics from the August market, and today, I want to update you on what you can expect this September. In August, we had some interesting changes in the market for the first time since the beginning of this year. For the first time since the market started to shift, we saw a decrease in inventory.
We are also seeing a continued increase in the days on the market. At the beginning of this year, we were around 10 days on market on average. Now we're seeing a jump up to 22 days on market in both Snohomish and King Counties.
As we head into September, interest rates have started to go up again. I mentioned in my last market update video that we had peaked in June and saw stabilization in the low 5% range. Well, just this last week the Federal Reserve announced that another rate hike is coming, and we've seen that interest rates have jumped yet again. It'll be interesting to follow that and see if they come down at all or if they stabilize at that level.
Demand might fall a little bit more. Luckily, with supply coming down, those will hopefully balance each other out. However, sellers will need to be aggressive in getting their homes sold and ensure they're not chasing the market down. They need to be priced ahead of the market and be aggressive.
With all that being said, we still haven’t reached a strong buyers market at this point. This sounds favorable for buyers because recently things have been so unfavorable for sellers, but we still have a good amount of scarcity and low inventory levels. We still haven't surpassed where we were in 2019, which was still a seller's market where prices were rising. Ultimately, it's going to come down to the specifics of your situation because it's a very localized market.
There are still areas that also are very competitive and there are areas that are starting to cool off more. So feel free to reach out to me via phone or email to discuss the specifics of your situation and the area and type of property that you're looking at. Have a great day.