2022 Market Report: A Year in Review

Welcome back to another annual Market Report by the Cohen Group NW, where we provide an overview of last year’s real estate data for Whatcom County and its municipalities. 

In January of 2022, rumors were swirling around interest rates hitting the 4% range by April (we were so young and innocent then). We invited Ian Mullen, a local loan officer (now with Evergreen Home Loans) to explain some of the larger economic factors at play in interest rate changes. 

While the video is now a year old, it’s still a resource we share regularly to provide an understanding of the moving parts in our national mortgage market, and how the Federal Reserve’s actions over especially the last three years have impacted the supply of money available for lending to home buyers.

May 2022 was another major month in local real estate. Buyers were being squeezed out of the market, and an influx of new listings came on. A couple of our team’s listings from March had gone under contract just before this shift, and those were the first “okay things are changing” in our lived experience. 

This video was one we created to give a larger, grounding context to the changes our clients were feeling, and start to shift expectations for what home buying and selling would look like moving forward.

Curious about the real estate market today, or want to dig into further analysis? Here are some of our key resources:

Market Updates - monthly-ish quick videos focused on statistics and hard data on what has happened in the prior month, quarter, or year. We put today’s numbers in the context of last year and several years ago, to help ground the ever-changing ups and downs in the larger trends (home prices might drop one month while still seeing 6-month gains, for example).

Dispatches from the Front - regular updates from one or more Cohen Group NW agents, discussing what they’re seeing in the market in real time. Strategies for success, advice for specific situations or general “this is the question I’m getting from all my clients right now” information.

And as always, you can follow us on social media for daily real estate and community content: CGNW Facebook | CGNW Instagram | LiveBellinghamNow Facebook | LiveBellinghamNow Instagram

Questions? Reach out to team@cohengroupnw.com!