Seattle's real estate market cools, slightly
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Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios
With pending home sales down 13% year over year, Seattle's real estate market is showing early signs of slowing down.
Yes, but: Home prices are still up 15.2% from May 2021.
Why it matters: We keep hearing about a market crash, but so far, local data doesn't support that.
What's happening: From May 2021 to May 2022, new listings were up 2.5% and pending sales dropped 13%.
- More buyers are holding off as home ownership becomes too expensive.
- This comes after mortgage rates surpassed 5% for the first time in 10 years.
- More sellers in Seattle are lowering their asking prices. In June, the number of homes with price cuts increased by 8.4 percentage points year over year, according to Redfin.
Zoom out: Nationally, mortgage applications were down 24%, and, on average, 6.5% of sellers dropped their asking price each week in June, per Redfin's latest market update.
- As of last month, national pending home sales were down 13% from this time last year — the largest decline since May 2020, Redfin's report stated.
Be smart: Inventory is still critically low overall, which continues to push home prices up.
What we're watching: New listings and pending sales. If more listings flood the market this summer and buyers don't bite, that's when we would start to see more power shift into buyers' hands.