Is the Wenatchee area real estate market over priced?
Well, yes, I think a bunch of it is. There are a bunch of homes, particularly in the over $400k range, that are overpriced for today’s market. The Wenatchee World had a conversation about this a few days ago, with a couple of local experts weighing in, because of a CNN Money article that pegged Wenatchee as the third most overpriced real estate market in the country.
They measured “over priced” by the ratio of the median income to the median home price. There are some arguments why that may not be a perfect model for Wenatchee. But, to be the way out in the tail of the curve as third most overpriced in the country, well, there are other towns with lots of out of town buyers too that didn’t score ahead of Wenatchee. I don’t mean to pick on Wenatchee. I think this applies to the whole area.
The CNN article stated:
And there are still some over-valued areas. Atlantic City, N.J., for example. Here the median price is $243,600, an overvaluation of 44.1%, the most of any metro area. The Ocean City, N.J., median price of $302,100 is the second most overvalued, at 33.8%. In third place is Wenatchee, Wash., which at $247,100, is 29.3% above normal. – CNN
In the World article, a local appraisal company and a local realtor in Wenatchee gave their opinions. The opinions were well stated and thought out. They talked about the basis for the CNN article, average income versus median home price, as having some issues. They also talked about different price sectors of the market versus inventory at those price points. All good thoughts.
But after a discussion of the large inventory of higher end homes, Brian Vincent from Pacific Appraisals said “I can’t say those (higher-end) homes are 30 percent overvalued, but the market has to correct itself to get some of them to move.” Brian also said at one point he did not forsee an adjustment of 30% in the local market. It is a good article, and worth a read: Housing Experts differ on pricing.
One fairly simple way to look at it, if your home is marketed competently, and has been on the market for a long time, it is over priced for today’s market.
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