Seattle real estate market showing signs of cooling

SEATTLE — Paul Endzell, of Dream Home Real Estate, has held five open houses at a 1941 home in Renton he listed for $525,000.

If the same house were in Seattle, it might sell for $900,000.

Endzell expected a lot of interest in the home.

"I'm wondering where everybody is," he said.

After a red-hot housing market for the last three years, the Seattle area is showing signs of cooling as more homes sit on the market.

The Northwest Multiple Listing Service said the number of active listings in King County in July was up nearly 48 percent from July 2017.

"It has been some time since buyers had a little bit more bargaining power," said Aaron Terrazas, senior economist at Zillow.

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Terrazas said that a year ago, local home values were appreciating at 14 percent.

Now, they're rising 11 percent.

Zillow predicts that will slow to about 7 percent growth over the next year.

That's double the historic rate of home appreciation, but a far cry from our recent crazed market.

Have we seen the top of the market?

"I think we're going to see home value appreciation slow down. I don't think it's going to go negative. We're not going to see a big crash but, yeah, I think it will be more of a balanced market over the next couple of years," Terrazas said.

Sage Ross is living the changes in Seattle real estate.

He and his wife were the only bidders on their new home in Lake Forest Park.

The house they just sold in Wedgwood got two offers, which came in about 10 percent below what they expected.

"We were kind of surprised when we ended up getting this house at all and it kind of made more sense once we put our house on the market and it ended up being a lot cooler of a market than we thought," Ross said.

Cox Media Group