Latest News

Hi, I'm Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates, and welcome to my July 2026 Market Update! If you've been wondering why the market feels different this year, the answer isn't because buyers disappeared. It's because sellers finally showed up. You know, over the past several years we've all lived through higher interest rates, inflation, stock market swings, political uncertainty, and no shortage of headlines predicting that the housing market was about to come to a screeching halt. But when I look at the actual data from our local multiple listing service, the NWMLS, I keep coming back to the same conclusion. The buyers never really left. In fact, they kept buying homes. So what’s changed this year isn't demand, it's supply. Let me show you what I mean. This chart really tells the whole story. Bur before we look at the numbers, let me explain what you're looking at. The orange line represents pending sales of single-family homes in King County, or in other words, the number of homes buyers put under contract each month, but had not yet close. The blue line shows the median sales price of those homes. And the green bars represent the average number of new listings that came onto the market during the second quarter of each year. Meaning, if you add up the number of new listings in April, May and June of each year, divide by three, that’s the number. And while I use the data from King County, these trends hold in other counties in our area as well. Now, don't worry about every little bump and wiggle in the lines. Instead, step back and look at the bigger picture, because what we’re looking for are the trends. The trends tell us what's really happening in the market and how buyer and sellers are behaving. The first thing that jumps out at me is the information in the orange line. Despite everything that's happened over the past four years, buyer activity has remained remarkably consistent. The dotted orange line shows the trendline for this data, and you can see how nice and perfectly horizontal it is. Yes, there are the normal seasonal ups and downs, but overall buyers have continued buying homes at a very steady rate. Now compare that with the green bars. Remember, each green bar represents the average number of new listings each month during the second quarter of that year. Here the dotted green line shows the trendline for this data. You can see how it’s inclined up, because every year these green lines have gotten taller. To put this in real number, back in 2023, the average number of new listings during the second quarter was just over 2,150 homes per month. A year later it increased to almost 2,600. Last year it climbed above 3,000. And this year we're averaging more than 3,200 new listings each month. That's about a fifty percent increase in just four years. And that's a pretty remarkable shift in such a short period of time. At the same time, as I mentioned earlier, buyer activity has remained surprisingly steady. So when you put those two trends together, the result is exactly what you'd expect. Inventory naturally increases. Today we're sitting at about three-and-a-half months of inventory. Now, compared with the past few years, that's a noticeable increase. Historically, though, it's still generally considered a seller's market. The difference is that buyers finally have more choices than they've had in quite some time. And honestly, I think that's healthier for everyone. Buyers now have time to compare several homes before making one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. By the way, if you'd like to spend a little more time looking at this chart and reading the full analysis, you'll find everything in my July newsletter, available online and for download, for free, at Weisbarth.com/newsletter. That's Weisbarth.com/newsletter. Now, don't get the impression that homes aren't selling. Good homes—properly priced and marketed—are still selling quickly. But the market does seem increasingly divided. And that’s another interesting consequence of all this. Some homes are selling very quickly, while others take longer. But they do sell, and that’s an important things to understand. As for prices, they're still slightly lower than they were a year ago, but they're continuing to move upward month-over-month, which is exactly what we'd expect during the spring and early summer market. So here’s an interesting question for you: why are more homeowners finally deciding to sell? My honest answer is... I don't know. I have some theories about it though. One possibility is that many homeowners postponed moving after locking in those historically low mortgage rates a few years ago. And that certainly made sense at the time. But, you see, eventually life catches up with all of us. Whether it’s a change in the family size, or change in jobs, retirement, or some other circumstance. Life doesn’t stand still and like many other things, housing needs evolve. At some point, those life events become more important than the interest rate on your mortgage. And when that happens, the decision to move becomes obvious. Now, whether what we’re seeing is the beginning of a longer-term shift or simply a release of pent-up supply is still too early to know. The next few months should give us a much better picture of where the market is headed. So if you're thinking about buying or selling—or simply you’re trying to understand what today's market means for your own plans—this is a great time to start putting together a strategy. My team and I use real data from our Northwest Multiple Listing Service, proven systems, and years of local market experience and insights to help our clients make confident decisions and maximize their results. And remember, when you work with us, you're also helping support Akin, an amazing nonprofit that helps children and families throughout our community. Your business and your referrals truly make a difference, and that's something we're incredibly proud of. For a no-obligation consultation—or if you'd simply like to bounce around some ideas—reach out by email, text, or, my favorite, a good old-fashioned phone call at 206-779-9808. That's 206-779-9808. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and follow for more updates. And be sure to check out the full July newsletter at Weisbarth.com/newsletter. I'm Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Enjoy the rest of your summer, and I'll see you next month.

Hi, I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates, and welcome to my June 2026 Market Update! I don't normally spend much time responding to media coverage of real estate. Part of that is because market data and headlines often serve two very different purposes. One is trying to inform you. The other is trying to get you to click. And let's be honest, a headline that says, "The Seattle housing market is behaving pretty much the way it usually does" isn't going to set the internet on fire. But over the past few weeks I've seen several articles suggesting that Seattle-area home prices are falling, that the market is weakening, and people are leaving Seattle and King County in large numbers. And after seeing enough of those stories, I found myself wondering whether we were all looking at the same data. Because when I pull up the actual date from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service data, which is the source of where all these housing numbers come from in the first place, I see a very different picture. Let me show you what I'm seeing. So, if all those headlines were correct, I'd expect to see buyer activity falling, prices softening, homes sitting on the market longer, and generally a market that was struggling to find its footing. Instead, what I see is pending sales reaching their highest level in about three years. We see median home prices continuing to trend upward. And we see homes selling relatively quickly, with the median home spending just seven days on the market. All this is suggesting that the market is actually very, very active. The buyers are out there shopping. Now, I want to be careful here because I'm not suggesting that every home sells in seven days or that every segment of the market is equally strong. Real estate is always more nuanced than that. But when I step back and look at the broader picture, to me it doesn't look much like a market in decline. And that's where context becomes really important. You see, real estate markets have seasonal patterns. Inventory rises and falls throughout the year. Buyer and seller activity rises and falls throughout the year. Prices accelerate and then level off and then accelerate again. And withing that larger seasonal and consumer behavior patterns there are still more subtle variations. That is normal. The problem is that if you ignore those patterns, it's surprisingly easy to create a narrative that sounds convincing, but isn't actually telling the whole story—and certainly not the correct story. Compare the wrong months. Focus on a single statistic. Ignore seasonality. And suddenly you can make a healthy market look troubled. That's one of the reasons I spend so much time looking at month-over-month trends an well as at longer-term trends, instead of relying entirely on a simple year-over-year comparisons. The context matters every bit as much as the numbers themselves. And just as importantly, you need to understand what's influencing buyer and seller behavior at different times of the year. The numbers matter, of course, but so does the psychology behind those numbers. And honestly, to me, the most remarkable part of this entire story isn't that the market is strong. It's that the market is behaving so normally. Think about everything we've been through over the past year or so. Inflation concerns. Interest-rate uncertainty. Tariffs. Stock market volatility. Wars. Political drama. Tech layoffs. There has been no shortage of reasons for buyers and sellers to feel nervous. And yet somehow the Greater Seattle area housing market continues to follow many of the same seasonal patterns that we've seen for well over a decade. That's actually pretty remarkable when you think about it. By the way, if you'd like to look at these charts yourself and dig deeper into the data, you can find my complete June newsletter online and available for free download at Weisbarth.com /newsletter. That's Weisbarth.com /newsletter. One of the arguments I've seen lately is that inventory is rising and therefore the market must be weakening. At first glance, that sounds reasonable. After all, if there are more homes for sale, doesn't that mean demand must be falling? Well... not necessarily. I was curious to see how today's inventory compares to what we considered normal before all the craziness of the past few years, and what I found was that inventory is still below much of what we saw throughout the 2010s. In other words, yes, buyers have more choices today than they've had recently. But that's very different from saying we suddenly have too many homes for sale. In fact, for years one of the biggest complaints from buyers was that there weren't enough homes to choose from. They'd wait for a home to come on the market, rush out to see it, compete against ten other buyers, lose, and then start the process all over again. Okay, my clients would actually win those multiple bids most of the time, but that's a different story. Thank you, you can hold your applause. A little more inventory isn't necessarily a sign of trouble. In many ways it's a sign of a healthier and more balanced market. Buyers have a better chance of finding the right home, sellers still have active demand, and the market functions more efficiently because people can actually compare options instead of fighting over the same handful of listings. And then there was another headline that caught my attention. The idea that people are leaving Seattle and King County in droves. Come on.... Whenever I hear a claim like that, my first instinct is usually the same: let's go look at the numbers. And when I did, I found that Seattle very recently surpassed 800,000 residents after adding roughly 11,500 residents over the past year. In fact, Seattle remains one of the fastest-growing major cities in the entire nation, even if that growth isn't quite as dramatic as it was during some of the boom years. To me, that doesn't sound much like a city that's emptying out. So the broader story continues to be one of growth rather than decline. Which brings us back to where we started. The more I looked into these stories, the more I kept coming back to the same conclusion: the headlines and the data simply aren't telling the same story. The headlines tell a story of decline. The data tells a story of a market that continues to be strong and behave remarkably normally. Almost boringly so. And honestly, I think that's the real story. Despite all the uncertainty, despite all the noise, despite all the reasons people have to feel nervous, the local housing market continues to behave in a surprisingly normal and seasonally predictable way. And that's important because buying and selling homes isn't just about economics. It's also about psychology. It's about how people feel about their situation today and about their confidence in their future. You've heard me say this many times before: a confused mind will do nothing. And what's not often said is that when confusion causes us to freeze, we tend to assume that everyone else is doing the same thing. But life doesn't really work that way, does it? People still get married. People still get divorced. Families grow, kids leave home, jobs change, people retire, and sometimes people simply wake up one morning and realize the house that worked perfectly a few years ago doesn't really fit their lifestyle anymore. Life keeps moving forward whether the headlines are optimistic or pessimistic. And because of that, housing demand tends to keep moving forward too. So if you're thinking about buying or selling this year—or if you know someone who is—I would encourage you to focus a little less on the headlines and a little more on the underlying data. Because that's where the real story is. My team and I use real NWMLS data, proven systems, and years of local market insights and experience to help our clients make confident decisions that maximize their results. And remember, when you work with us, you're also helping support Akin, an amazing nonprofit that helps kids and families in need thrive. Your business and your referrals make a real difference in our community, and we're incredibly proud to be part of that mission. For a no-obligation consultation—or if you'd simply like to bounce around some ideas—reach out to me by email, text, or, my favorite, a good old-fashioned phone call at 206-779-9808. That's 206-779-9808. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and follow for more updates, and be sure to check out the full June newsletter at Weisbarth.com /newsletter. I'm Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates. Welcome to summer, welcome World Cup, and I'll see you next month.

Hi, I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates, and welcome to my May 2026 Market Update! You know, if a Martian landed in Seattle and looked only at our real estate data from the past several years, they’d probably conclude that nothing particularly unusual is happening here. Which is kind of amazing when you think about it. Because meanwhile, down on Earth, we’ve had inflation spikes, rapidly changing interest rates, wars, tech layoffs, tariffs, political uncertainty, stock market volatility, and enough economic chaos to make people’s heads spin. And yet somehow, the local housing market continues to behave in a surprisingly normal and seasonally predictable way. Honestly, after the last few years, that may be the strangest thing of all. If we look at the King County single-family home market, the overall trends remain remarkably healthy and normal for this time of year. Pending sales continue to rise seasonally, new listings are increasing as more sellers enter the market, and median prices climbed steadily from their winter lows through early spring — exactly what we’d typically expect to see this time of year. Now, one thing that really stands out to me is inventory. The number of homes for sale is now sitting at levels we haven’t seen since before COVID. Buyers finally have more choices again, and I think that’s one of the main reasons prices have remained relatively restrained compared to the pandemic frenzy years. And honestly, I think that’s probably healthier. Homes that are well-prepared, properly marketed, and priced strategically are still selling quickly. Buyers are still active. Life events continue happening. People still need homes. But buyers now have a little more breathing room, and sellers need to be more strategic than they did a few years ago, when almost anything would sell instantly with twelve offers and someone waiving their firstborn child as part of the contract. Okay… maybe not literally. But it was getting close there for a while. And by the way, if you’d like to study these charts more closely and read my full report at your own pace, you can find my complete May newsletter for free at Weisbarth.com/newsletter — that’s Weisbarth.com/newsletter. Now, there was one interesting little wrinkle in the data this month that caught my attention. If you look at this second chart, the blue line represents King County median prices, while the orange line represents Seattle median prices. For quite a while now, these two lines have been tracking each other very closely. Historically, Seattle often outperformed the broader county — especially on prices — but over the past several years the surrounding market has largely caught up, and the data between the two has looked surprisingly similar. But this month we saw a small divergence. Seattle median prices actually rose about 1.5% month-over-month, while King County prices declined roughly 4.3% during the same period. Now, before anybody panics or starts making grand predictions — this may ultimately mean absolutely nothing. Median price data can be noisy month-to-month depending on the mix of homes that sold. Sometimes a higher concentration of luxury homes or lower-priced homes can temporarily skew the numbers. But I was curious to see it because we really haven’t seen much separation between Seattle and the broader county lately. And interestingly, that divergence doesn’t really show up in the other metrics. Pending sales, new listings, and overall activity levels still look very similar between the two markets. So for now, I’d categorize this less as “a trend” and more as “something interesting to watch.” And honestly, that’s one of the reasons I focus so much on month-over-month movement and broader market behavior instead of dramatic headlines. Real estate markets are emotional, cyclical, and sometimes noisy in the short term. One isolated number rarely tells the full story. What still seems much more meaningful to me is that buyers continue adapting to uncertainty remarkably well. For a while, every new headline seemed capable of freezing the market. And sometimes that still happens temporarily — because as I often say, a confused mind will do nothing. But increasingly, buyers and sellers seem to be adjusting psychologically to the idea that uncertainty itself may simply be part of normal life now. And that’s probably one reason the market has remained surprisingly resilient despite everything happening around us. If the normal seasonal patterns continue, there’s a good chance prices either peak this month or sometime in early summer before we gradually move into the typical late-summer slowdown. Of course, unusual economic events could always change the trajectory. But at least for now, the market appears stubbornly committed to behaving normally. So if you’re thinking about buying or selling this year, strategy matters more than ever. For sellers, proper pricing, presentation, preparation, and marketing have become critically important again — which is exactly why our proven 5-step seller system was designed for markets like this. And for buyers, having a clear strategy, understanding your priorities, and being fully prepared before the right home appears can make all the difference — especially as good homes still move very quickly. That’s a major part of our proven 3-step buyer system. And remember, when you work with our team, your business and referrals also help support Akin and the amazing work they do helping kids and families in need throughout our community. If you’d like help analyzing your specific situation, my team and I are always happy to offer a no-obligation consultation. And honestly, the best way to reach me is still the old-fashioned way — just pick up the phone and give me a call directly at 206-779-9808. That’s 206-779-9808. And if you know someone thinking about buying or selling, feel free to refer them my way as well. Thanks again for watching! Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and follow for more updates. And once again, you can always read my full newsletter and see all the charts at Weisbarth.com/newsletter — that’s Weisbarth.com/newsletter. I’m Doron Weisbarth with Weisbarth & Associates, and I’ll see you next time!