Seattle Home Prices Rose in February for First Time in 16 Months

Single-family home prices in Seattle rose in February for the first time in 16 months, suggesting the city’s housing market may be bottoming, a brokers group said.

The median price climbed 2.8 percent to $365,000 from $355,000 a year earlier, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, a broker-owned group in Kirkland, Washington. It was the first increase since October 2010, when the median price rose 4.3 percent to $417,000, the group said today. Completed sales jumped 7.8 percent to 316 homes, and contracts to buy single-family houses jumped 13 percent to 639.

Including condominiums, pending sales rose 22 percent to 891 homes, and completed deals increased 10 percent to 444, the listing service said. The median price for all Seattle homes fell 5.3 percent to $329,250.

“Buyers are beginning to realize that we may have seen the bottom of this real estate market,” Frank Wilson, managing broker of the Poulsbo, Washington, branch of John L. Scott Real Estate, said in a statement.

The market is still being held back by homes sold for less than the debt owed on a property and sales of foreclosed homes, said Wilson, a member of the listing service’s board.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hui-yong Yu in Seattle at hyu@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Taub at dtaub@bloomberg.net