A snapshot of real estate sales in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park

Special to the Shoreline Area News, real estate correspondent and North City resident Nan Skinner breaks down the real estate market in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park.

By Nan Skinner

Lake Forest Park

Residential

As of this moment, there are 35 homes available for purchase in Lake Forest Park. There are two homes that have recently gone under contract and are awaiting the inspection phase of the purchase process. Fifty-two homes were waiting for new people to take ownership. The people involved in these 52 transactions are working smart and hard to make sure the transactions close on time and as easily as possible.

Twenty homes were sold in the month of July (yay, new homeowners). Sold prices ranged from $140,000 to $825,000. The size of these homes ranged from 1030 to 3520 square feet (2-6 bedrooms and 1-3.5 bathrooms). Most of these homes were on the market for less than 10 days (that's the number of days between when they came on the market and buyer and seller came to mutual agreement on an offer). About half of these 22 homes sold for well over asking price!

Condominium

Big contrast to residential market - 2 condos for sale and 2 waiting to put the sold sign up. Two condos sold in July, one for $215,000 and one for $225,000.

Shoreline

Residential

There are currently 94 homes for sale in Shoreline. Number of days on the market range from 0 (new today) to 1583. (I'll tell you about the pending sales in a minute.) Prices for these homes range from $265,000 to over $5M. One home is 740 sf and another is over 10,000 sf with many sizes in between with two to more than 6 bedrooms!

Now, let's talk about pending sales. There are a couple of pending categories this month that I don't see often - Pending Back-up (2), Pending Feasibility (1) and Pending Short Sale (1) (thank goodness we're over that phase). An agent will use the pending back-up category when she wants to encourage additional offers. Pending feasibility means the potential new owner wants to do something different with a property. This one happens to be in a new zoning area in North City. Hmmm. Pending short sale is waiting for a bank to approve the purchase price. So, back to the count. Fifty-seven homes are about to get new owners (pending). Say hello to your new neighbor!

Seventy-three homes sold in Shoreline in July! The prices of these homes started at $299,000 all the way up to $1.3M. The smallest home came in at 800 sf with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths and sold for $47,000 over list price! The largest home sold was 3450 sf with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths and sold for list price (about $1.2M).

An observation: the number of sold and active listings are very close in numbers. This MAY mean the market MAY becoming more balanced. A buyer's market means the supply is greater than the demand and prices go down. A seller's market means the demand is higher than the supply and prices go up and buyers might have to pay more than they wanted. A balanced market means the demand is close to the supply. 

Condominium

Twelve condos sold in July. The price range was $175,000 (582 sf) to $375,000 (1583). Almost all of these sales were at or above asking price.

New Construction

Well there is new construction in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park. There's a new development (12 Degrees North) where the former Elks Lodge was and those properties make up the largest portion of this market. There are seven new construction homes for sale in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park, just one of them is in the new development. List prices range from $581K to $1.5M. Six new construction homes sold in July, 3 in Lake Forest Park (12 Degrees North) and 3 in Shoreline, all in the $500-$700K price range. 

Stats Summary

In both Shoreline and Lake Forest Park, there were 111 homes sold in July. The average sale price was $547,000!  The average number of days these homes were on the market was 14! Almost all homes sold for over asking price. The typical 3 bedroom, 2 bath homes now sells for an average price of $460,000.  In July 2015, the average price for this typical home size was $416,000.  I'll let you do the math.

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Nan Skinner lives in Shoreline and is associated with the Keller Williams Bothell Market Center.  She's been helping happy home owners and investors for 16 years. If you have any questions about real estate, call or text her at 206-734-9289. Her e-mail address is rayn@kw.com and her website is www.realest8lady.com.