Greater Seattle Real Estate – May 2025

The Northwest Multiple Listing Service, in which Seattle trends closely, is seeing a noticeable shift with more homes hitting the market than we’ve seen in recent years. In May, total active listings surpassed 18,000 for the first time since 2018. The good news is this gives homebuyers more choices and potentially less competitive pressure. Home prices are essential even from a year ago, with a decline of less than 1% from last year. The NWMLS median sale’s price was $654,995 in May which was a slight increase from last month, however a slight decrease from $660,000 last May.  In addition, King County, where Seattle real estate is located, the median sales price was $865,000.  It was the county with the highest median sales price yet again.  The number of NWMLS sales was down 3.3% from the previous year, but up 9.9% from the previous month. The sales did not keep up with the increase in new listings.  Inventory at the end of May was 18,310 which was up 42.6% from the previous year and up 26.6% (14,459 listings) from the end of April. Nevertheless, the 6,467 closed sales meant there was only 2.8 months of inventory at the end of the month which is still considered a seller’s market.  Anything under 4 months is a seller’s market.  Therefore, buyers have more options than before, but sellers should also have the knowledge that the market remains strong as we head into Summer.