August Real Estate Market Report

With Autumn just a few weeks away, we're looking back on a summer market which held steady in spite of numerous challenges nationally and regionally.

Median Price is up 1.95% in King County year over year at $887,000 and essentially flat (down 0.52%) in Snohomish County at $751,096. This is welcome news and makes the Seattle Metro market one of the strongest in the nation where other areas such as Florida, Texas and Nevada are seeing receding prices after overdevelopment.

Our levels of inventory are growing but still show a market which is seller favored with 3.1 homes in King County and only 2.5 months in Snohomish. These are 0.6 and 0.7 months, respectively, greater than they were last year at this time. Though both are below the 4 to 5 months required to have a truly balanced market.

This additional inventory increased average marketing times to around 32 days in King and 30 days in Snohomish County which is 4-6 days more than a year ago, and Buyers are striking better deals with average List to Sell ratios at 97.60% in King and 97.30% in Snohomish County which are down from being about 99-100% in August 2024.  This move close to a balanced market has also decreased frequency of multiple offers by about 10% with only 24% of recent listings receiving multiple offers and only 7% of sellers receiving escalation addenda in their offer. Buyers are also not as aggressive with removing contingencies with 6% more buyers keeping an inspection contingency and 5% more keeping their financing contingency.

Much of the steadiness to our market has come from the stability of our local economy, the lack of overdevelopment of new housing in the area and a moderation of mortgage rates which are down to 6.56% which is attractive compared to the 7.0%+ rates we were seeing earlier this year.