These home sales numbers for the first 114 days of the year offer additional perspective on how readily the lowest-priced homes are selling and where. These numbers tally year-to-date closed sales on homes priced under $250,000 and reveal that in most areas sales of such homes are off compared to the same period last year. The numbers, from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, come courtesy of Dick Beeson, a Windermere broker and MLS director.

As I mentioned earlier this week, digging into these numbers was part of determining whether or not more sales of the cheapest homes was contributing to months of declines in the county's median home price. Year-to-date sales of homes in all price ranges are off 17 percent, so unless you're in Puyallup, the Eatonville area or Lakewood these numbers show that far fewer of the lowest-priced homes are selling.