How frequent are million-dollar sales in Whatcom County, currently and in the recent past?
Let’s start by taking a quick look back to 2008. For that year — caught in the grips of recession from day 1 to day 365 — we saw just over 1 sale a month, county-wide, for a total of 14 homes sold above that mystical million-dollar mark. Exactly half of them dropped their price before selling. Average time on market was 176 days, and average sale price to list price ratio was just over 88%. The highest priced home to sell in the county, per the NWMLS statistics, went for $3.3 million.
This year, with just over 2 months to go before the big apple drops, we’re on track to beat last year’s numbers. Only 11 high-enders have closed up to this pre-Halloween date, but 7 more are currently pending. With a substantial inventory of 62 homes listed for $1 mil or more, we may see the number of closed sales hit 20 before the year’s out.
This year the average time on market for the high enders has nearly doubled from ’08 to 317 days. About half the 11 closed sales (5) dropped their price before selling. The average sale price to list price ratio, so far, is 91.87%. The highest priced home to sell so far this year went for $2 million even.
In ’09, 20 high-end homes expired without selling after an average time on market of just under 400 days. Another 20 were cancelled for one reason or another, without selling, after an average time on market of 303 days.
For the most part, these homes are a treat to view and experience (and no doubt to live in), and honestly they’re a treat to sell. It’s not uncommon at ALL to see agents, lenders, and everyone else involved work harder on a o% down, $5000 manufactured home than on a $2 million transaction.
In the group of 62 homes for sale above a million, some of them are so ridiculously overpriced as to be laughable. One of them has come down in price nearly 75% from where it started!!! Yikes! So if you’re toying with the idea of going high-end, don’t be too quick to get sticker-shock. The prices can be as fluid as the rain running off the Italian slate roof and right into the hand-guilded copper gutters.
