Open House Traffic is Serious Business.

Anybody care to explain: A) Why REALTORS™ still get free advertising like this from local newspapers, even after years of crap like this (pdf “fact sheet” from 2006)? B) What the heck is that photo supposed to have to do with the story?

Now that March is behind us, let’s have a look at our monthly stats preview. Most of the charts below are based on broad county-wide data that is available through a simple search of King County Records. If you have additional stats you’d like to see in the “preview,” drop a line in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Here’s your preview of March’s foreclosure and home sale stats:

First up, total home sales as measured by the number of “Warranty Deeds” filed with the county:

Warranty Deeds shot up over 55% from February, and over 55% from March last year. I suspect we will see between 1,200 and 1,500 closed sales this month, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we get close to 2,000 in one of the next three months before the tax credit expires. After that, we’ll probably see a notable drop.

Next, here’s Notices of Trustee Sale, which are an indication of the number of homes currently in the foreclosure process:

That was a short-lived stint in the negative year-over-year territory. Spiking hard, foreclosures shot up 24% from last year, and 87% from the prior month. Yow. It will be interesting to see if this is a new wave or just a one-month spike.

Here’s another measure of foreclosures, looking at Trustee Deeds, which is the type of document filed with the county when the bank actually repossesses a house through the trustee auction process. Note that there are other ways for the bank to repossess a house that result in different documents being filed, such as when a borrower “turns in the keys” and files a “Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”

Actual completed foreclosures posted another stronger YOY gain, increasing 67% from 2009.

Lastly, here’s an approximate guess at where the month-end inventory was, based on our sidebar inventory tracker (powered by Estately):

Getting closer and closer to flat year-over-year.

Stay tuned later this month a for more detailed look at each of these metrics as the “official” data is released from various sources.