Housing Market Sees Some 'Normalcy' Returning To Puget Sound

KIRKLAND, WA — June showed fresh signs of a returning "sense of normalcy" for Western Washington's real estate market, with brokers across the region seeing housing inventory improve as sales slowed and prices showed their smallest growth since June 2020. The Kirkland-based Northwest Multiple Listing Service released its monthly report Wednesday, detailing the latest trends for buyers and sellers this summer across 26 Washington counties.

Overall, realtors said there were more houses on the market, and for longer, in June, with prices continuing to stabilize, contrasting with the massive surges seen over the last two years. Though the market is a bit more balanced and price hikes appear to be leveling out, buyers are still contending with an expensive and challenging landscape.

Across the 26 counties covered in the report, the NWMLS said prices were up 10.4 percent since last June, reaching an area-wide median of $650,000. Seven counties saw price hikes at or above 19 percent: Kitsap, Jefferson, Whatcom, Lewis, Mason, Douglas and Ferry. Through King County saw the state's second-highest sales prices last month, the report found they decline by about $30,000 compared to May. The most expensive areas in the state's most populous county were the Eastside, Vashon Island, North Seattle and Lake Forest Park, where median prices topped $1 million.

“What the changes mean in general terms, are more houses on the market, longer market times, stabilizing home prices, fewer showings and open house visitors, fewer offers at one time, and more price adjustments,” said Frank Wilson, Kitsap regional manager at John L. Scott Real Estate. “While we have seen an increase in market time to almost a month and a half, there is a long way to go for the market to reach a neutral level which is typically found between four and six months of inventory.”

According to the NWMLS, brokers across the state added more than 14,000 new listings for single-family homes and condos last month, reaching the highest volume of new listings since May 2019. At the same time, pending and closed sales were down by double digits compared to June 2021. Together, the trends are allowing more areas to build up their housing stock, offering buyers more choices and slowing down the upward momentum on asking prices.

“While there was a decrease in closed and pending sales in June, there is no reason to panic as we
continue to move toward a more balanced market,” said John Deely, executive vice president of
operations at Coldwell Banker Bain. “Having the standing active inventory rise above the closed and pending categories in June means we are finally building inventory, which is healthy for the marketplace. It slows down the steep price appreciation we have been seeing and provides a bit more time for buyers to look at more properties.”

While King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties together saw home listings rise 144 percent compared to last June, realtors also noted that there is a long way to go to return to pre-pandemic conditions.

“The pandemic heavily influenced the housing market with inventory levels essentially drying up in 2020/2021,” said Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere. “This still represents the fourth lowest number of listings in any June for this region since 1999.”

Here are some of the average prices for closed sales in June (houses + condos):

• San Juan County: $1,148,840
• King County: $1,067,968
• Snohomish County: $835, 570
• Kitsap County: $727,573
• Pierce County: $619,791