Nervous buyers watch housing prices slide in Seattle

Though buying a house in the Emerald City remains far from affordable for many, interest rate increases and more listings on the market means a correction is underway, according to a recent RE/MAX national housing report.

Driving the news: The Seattle housing market continues to cool with a 120% rise in inventory and a 30% drop in transactions year over year, the second largest drop of 2022, the report found.

What they're saying: "There is no longer any doubt that the Seattle housing market is in a correction," John Manning, owner of RE/MAX On Market in Seattle, said.

• "Median prices are down, and the days-on-market have increased."

The big picture: The pandemic-era housing boom brought record-shattering home prices to the U.S., with the national median resale price topping $400,000 for the first time ever earlier this year. In San Francisco and Silicon Valley, the sale price of the typical home approached $2 million. In Seattle, it was near $1 million.

• But the one-two punch of soaring mortgage rates and increasing affordability challenges means that boom is likely over, according to Bankrate.
• Seattle and other West Coast tech hubs are seeing the largest home value pullbacks, according to CoreLogic's monthly home price index.

By the numbers: The price tag on homes in four Seattle-area counties ticked down by 2-3% from August to September, according to the Seattle Times, with the median price of single-family homes coming in at:

• $875,000 in King County
• $735,000 in Snohomish County
• $539,997 in Kitsap County
• $538,000 in Pierce County

The bottom line: Manning said inexperienced buyers may be nervously watching the market from the sidelines, while more experienced buyers — who expect to refinance when mortgage rates come down — will take advantage of the pressure on sellers to negotiate better prices and terms.