Seattle Home Prices Up 6.2% From Last July, But Second-Quarter Gains Are Starting to Slow

Seattle's median home sale price hit $875,000 in the second quarter of 2026, up 6.2 percent from the same period last year, according to figures compiled by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. That headline number sounds robust. Dig into the quarterly progression, though, and the picture gets murkier: Q2's gain over Q1 was just 1.1 percent, the smallest sequential jump in six quarters.

The timing matters. Buyers who sat out the winter expecting spring relief didn't get much. Inventory across King County ticked up in April and May, but not enough to meaningfully cool prices in the neighborhoods where demand is fiercest. Now, with the Fourth of July weekend pulling attention elsewhere — brutal heat has already cancelled outdoor celebrations from DC to Philadelphia — the local real estate calendar is entering its traditional summer lull. What happens to prices between now and Labor Day will tell brokers and homeowners a great deal about where 2026 ends up.

Where the Growth Is Coming From

The strongest quarterly appreciation is concentrated in a familiar band of neighborhoods. Capitol Hill recorded a median sale price of $820,000 in Q2, up from $763,000 in Q2 2025 — a 7.5 percent annual gain. Ballard, where new construction along 15th Avenue NW has added supply but also attracted higher-income buyers relocating from California and New York, posted a median of $910,000, up 6.8 percent year-over-year. Contrast that with Rainier Beach, where the median sits closer to $620,000 and year-over-year growth has been a more modest 4.1 percent, reflecting persistent affordability constraints at the lower end of the market.

The Eastside is a different animal. Bellevue's median crossed $1.4 million in Q2, and Kirkland is not far behind at $1.18 million. Both markets are being driven partly by continued tech hiring — Amazon's second HQ expansion in Bellevue's Spring District remains a gravitational force — though hiring cycles at major employers have shown some volatility this year.

The Seattle Office of Housing's HomeWise program, which provides low-interest loans for owner-occupied improvements, has seen application volume rise 18 percent since January, a signal that existing homeowners are choosing to renovate rather than sell into a market where their next purchase would cost them considerably more. That dynamic is one reason listings remain constrained. Homeowners locked into 30-year mortgages at 3 percent or below have little financial incentive to trade up when current rates are hovering around 6.7 percent.

Reading the Quarter-by-Quarter Slowdown

The sequential deceleration — from 2.4 percent Q4-to-Q1 growth down to 1.1 percent Q1-to-Q2 — isn't a crash signal. It's a recalibration. Brokerages including Windermere Real Estate and John L. Scott have both noted that multiple-offer situations, while still occurring in sub-$750,000 listings near Link Light Rail stations like Columbia City and Mount Baker, are less automatic than they were in 2024 and early 2025.

Condominiums are underperforming single-family homes again. The median condo price in Seattle proper was $545,000 in Q2, up just 3.2 percent from Q2 2025. Downtown and South Lake Union towers built between 2018 and 2022 are seeing the weakest absorption, partly because remote and hybrid work arrangements have reduced the premium buyers once paid for a short walk to an office tower on Westlake Avenue.

For buyers planning to move before school starts in September, the practical math is straightforward: the sub-$900,000 bracket in walkable neighborhoods like Fremont, Phinney Ridge, and Green Lake is still competitive, but the frenzy of 2021 and 2022 is not back. Sellers who price aggressively above comparable sales are sitting longer — the average days-on-market figure for King County climbed to 19 days in June, up from 12 days in June 2025. That extra week on market is a negotiating lever buyers didn't have a year ago, and smart agents on both sides of a transaction are adjusting their strategies accordingly.