More houses are going on the market in Seattle, good news for those searching for a place to live, though homes in and around the city remain expensive. Curbed Seattle reports:
The short version of the story of the past while in Seattle real estate is not just high prices, but extremely low inventory. Fortunately, at least one thing that’s making things harder for buyers and agents alike seems to be changing, according to the latest numbers from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS): The city ended June with more than a month of inventory for the first time since September 2016.
In the Seattle city limits in June 2018, NWMLS saw 1,246 active listings, a 75.5 percent increase from the year before. Seattle ended last month with 1.2 months of inventory—a figure based on number of homes for sale and typical sales time—which is nearly double what the market had the previous year.
While this didn’t translate to a decrease in housing prices, they did rise less than last month or last year. Median closing prices rose 8 percent compared to June of last year—but at that time, home values had risen 17 percent. So although the median closing price for last month in Seattle was a whopping $740,000, or $812,500 for a single-family home, it rose far less quickly than this time last year.
