By Maggie Sun, Managing Broker · Data window: NWMLS closed sales through the most recent reported month, August 2026 report
Who this is for: buyers and sellers who need to know what changed in the Greater Seattle market this month, not a general explainer. What you should walk away with: where prices and inventory actually sit right now, and what that means for your timing.
Data definitions used throughout: all figures are NWMLS closed sales unless stated otherwise; property type is Single Family (detached) unless a line explicitly says Condominium; geography is named on every line (King County, Seattle, or a named Eastside city); the time window is the most recent reported month or a three-month rolling window as labeled. Median price is a measure of the middle of the mix that closed, not an appraisal or an index of the same home over time.
Contents
- King County: the latest month
- First half 2026: city-level single-family changes
- Bellevue and the Eastside: inventory is the story
- One, three and five-year windows
- What this means if you are buying
- What this means if you are selling
- Sources and definitions
- What our team is seeing on the ground
King County: the latest month
Three numbers matter in a monthly update: what closed, how long it took, and how much inventory is competing for the next buyer.
- Median closed price, single family, King County — the middle of what actually closed this month. Read it against the same month last year, not against the previous month, because seasonality moves the mix.
- Median days on market (DOM) — the clearest leverage signal available. Rising DOM with flat prices means sellers are absorbing the adjustment through time on market before they absorb it through price.
- Sale-to-list ratio — Bellevue single family sits near 98.6% on the three-month rolling window through June 2026. That is the practical end of the multiple-offer-over-list environment for the typical listing; well-prepared, correctly priced homes still clear at or above list, but they are no longer the default.
- Active inventory and months of supply — more choice for buyers than at any point in the last three years across most of the county.
Condominiums are running on a separate track and should never be blended into the single-family read. Condo inventory has been slower to clear, and HOA dues, reserves and special assessments are doing more to determine which units sell than location alone.
First half 2026: city-level single-family changes
Looking at the first half of 2026 rather than a single month smooths out the mix effects and shows where the direction actually differs by city.
| Sub-market | What the first half showed | Practical read |
|---|---|---|
| Bellevue | Price per square foot softened; sale-to-list fell below 100%; active inventory up | Buyers have negotiating room they did not have in 2023–2024 |
| Seattle (city) | More stable than the Eastside on a percentage basis; neighborhood spread is wide | City-level averages hide large neighborhood differences — price at the neighborhood level |
| Kirkland / Redmond | Similar direction to Bellevue, smaller magnitude | Well-prepared listings still move quickly |
| Sammamish / Issaquah | Held up on volume; longer marketing times at the top of the range | Pricing discipline matters more than in prior years |
| Mercer Island | Thin sample, high variance | Median is not meaningful here — use comparable sales only |
Every line above is single family. Where a sub-market has few closings in a month, we do not quote a median at all; we work from comparable sales.
Bellevue and the Eastside: inventory is the story
Our read, stated as a team view rather than a statistic: demand on the Eastside has not disappeared. What changed is the balance. Buyers have more listings to compare, more time to decide, and more willingness to walk. That shows up first as longer days on market, then as a sale-to-list ratio under 100%, and only later as a change in the median.
A core market can adjust without losing long-term value. A short-term decline is not evidence that the underlying demand drivers — employment, commute, schools, supply constraints — have gone away. We say this as an interpretation of the data, not as a forecast. A weaker 2027 is one risk scenario worth stress-testing, not a prediction we are making.
One, three and five-year windows
Which window you pick changes the story, so we always show three:
- One year: captures the current adjustment. This is the window that matters if you are transacting in the next 90 days.
- Three years: spans the rate shock and the recovery. Useful for judging whether the current move is unusual.
- Five years: the holding-period view. Use it as a stress test — "could I hold through a flat five years?" — not as a promise that five years guarantees recovery.
What this means if you are buying
- You can ask for inspection and financing contingencies again in more situations than you could two years ago. Ask.
- Listings sitting past the local median DOM are where the negotiation is. Track days on market by sub-market, not county-wide.
- Compare like with like: single family against single family, condo against condo, same neighborhood, last 90 days.
- Verify school assignment by exact address before you write — do not rely on the listing.
What this means if you are selling
- The first price is the decision that matters most. In a sub-100% sale-to-list market, an aspirational list price costs you weeks and then costs you price.
- Preparation now separates outcomes more than location does: condition, pre-inspection, photography, and a clean first two weeks of feedback.
- Watch the first 14 days of showing feedback as your real pricing data. If traffic is there and offers are not, the issue is price or condition, not exposure.
- Ask for a net sheet before listing so the REET, commissions and closing costs are known up front.
What our team is seeing on the ground this month
The figures above come from NWMLS. The following are first-hand observations from Maggie Sun's team across showings, offers and listing appointments in August 2026 — judgment, not statistics.
- Buyers now negotiate repairs again. Through most of 2026 we have written inspection-contingent offers as a matter of course on the Eastside, and sellers are accepting them. Two years ago that contingency alone would have lost the house.
- Price cuts arrive around day 21. The listings we track that have not gone pending inside three weeks almost all take a reduction in week four. If you are a seller, the pricing decision you make on day one is worth more than any adjustment you make on day 30.
- Well-prepared homes are still clearing fast. The market is not uniformly slow — it is split. Pre-inspected, staged, correctly priced listings in Bellevue and Kirkland are still going pending in under two weeks. Everything else sits.
- Condos and single family have decoupled. We are advising condo sellers to plan for roughly double the marketing time of a comparable single-family home, and to have HOA financials, reserve study and any pending assessment disclosed up front.
- Relocation buyers are moving in a narrower window. Most of our relocation clients this year are trying to close before the school year, which concentrates competition in May–July and leaves genuine negotiating room in September and October.
Sources and definitions
- NWMLS closed sales, geography and property type labeled on each figure; monthly and three-month rolling windows as stated.
- Company August 2026 market report and the 2026 H1 Greater Seattle Single-Family Market Map.
- Median price = middle of closed sales in the stated window and geography. DOM = median days on market for closed sales. Sale-to-list = closed price divided by final list price.
Team interpretation is labeled as such and kept separate from reported statistics. Nothing here is a forecast or an appraisal.
Next step
Tell us the city and price band you are watching and we will send the current month's single-family and condo figures for that specific sub-market, with the comparable sales behind them.
