Thursday, February 04, 2010 finds the sun shining - an absolutely beautiful day in Bellingham, WA! Flowers are budding and bulbs are sprouting - let’s hope the temperatures don’t suddenly drop and play havoc with our flower beds.

Inventory and sale prices fell during January. There were 3,915 fewer active listings of single family homes and condominiums in the MLS system compared to a year ago, a drop of about 10.3 percent. Sale prices area-wide for January declined about 4.8 percent from figures of a year ago.

NWMLS members added 11,206 new listings to inventory during January, including 9,269 single family homes and 1, 937 condominiums. With those additions, the selection at month end totaled 34, 256 listings, down more than 10 percent from a year ago. The inventory of single family homes shrunk 11.5 percent, while the condo selection declined by 3.7 percent.

The median sales price for last month’s closed sales of single-family homes and condominiums combined was $259,903 (down 4.8 percent from the year-ago price of $273,000).

SOME INTERESTING 2009 HIGHLIGHTS reported by NWMLS: 

• 802 sales of single-family homes fetched $1 million or more. Bellevue had the highest volume of million-dollar sales (120 closed sales). The highest priced home sale in the MLS system for 2009 was $15,560,000 for a home on Mercer Island.
• There were 66 reported condo sales for $1 million or more; 392 condos sold for $500,000 or more. The highest price condo sale last year was in downtown Seattle. It sold for $9,750,000.
• Member-brokers added 117,583 new listings of single-family homes and condos to the inventory during 2009 and represented an average of 39,212 home sellers (active listings) each month.