Leavenworth Home Prices – Spring 2024
Spring is the busy real estate season and what happens during April, May and June can tell us lots about the real estate market and where Leavenworth home prices might be headed.
2024 has been a little bit of a strange year. Real estate agents have been joking that one of two things will happen when you list a house in this market.
“Either you will get multiple offers, or you will need to do a price reduction in a few weeks.”
While buyers may feel like they are seeing lots of new listings as well as quite a few price reductions, the number of homes sold has been steady and the sold prices continue to climb, year over year.
As is often the case, a quick look at the data would allow you to write some misleading headlines, either about the number of houses that have sold this year compared to the “Pandemic Boom” years (2020-2022) or about Leavenworth home prices compared to last year.
Leavenworth Home Prices this Spring
However, the big picture trends are more interesting to us. The average price of a single family home in the Leavenworth area is now a record $991,000 and the median sold price has climbed to $849,000. At present, it would appear that Q2 of 2023 was a blip in the long term trend of price growth. Many felt that the lower prices last year were the beginning of a price correction, but this does not appear to be the case.
Higher priced homes have certainly been driving up average prices. Thirteen homes sold above $ 1 million this quarter including two homes that sold for more than $3 million.
Leavenworth Home Sale Volume
The other interesting data is the number of home sales. This spring 36 homes sold in the Leavenworth area which is the same as the spring of 2023. In fact, when we look at the number of homes sold in the years between 2013-2019 the average number of homes sold in this quarter was 38 with a median of 36 homes sold. Both 2023 and 2024 seem to be right in line with the pre-pandemic transaction volume.
Prediction for Fall of 2024
Many people are wondering what effect lower interest rates will have on the market if the Fed does lower rates one or two times this year.
It’s safe to assume that lower rates will increase sales activity. However, it might not help affordability. Lower rates may bring large numbers of buyers back into the market. If those buyers compete against each other, then home prices will increase again. The winners might end up being sellers not buyers if interest rates go down.
Required disclaimers:
Information and statistics derived from Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Additionally, this representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by the North Central Washington Association of Realtors or its Multiple Listing Service. Neither the Association nor its MLS guarantees or are in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by the Association or its MLS may not reflect all real estate activity in the Market.