When I spent the week after Christmas looking at all the real estate market forecasts, I felt like 2026 was shaping up to be a “Goldilocks” real estate market, that is one where it’s more-or-less “just right.” One that doesn’t overly favor the seller, but doesn’t overly favor the buyer either.
Looking at the year to date Seattle (with an emphasis on West Seattle) NWMLS data last night, I feel like we’re on track for that Goldilocks market.
There’s definitely the late winter uptick that is to be expected every year. And after a less than stellar couple of Januarys in a row, we’re seeing a nice uptick this January relative to other Januarys. But it’s nothing too crazy, and doesn’t favor either the Buyer or the Seller too much. In other words, the market seems good and healthy. It’s Goldilocks.
Some data points that jump out:
- Sales price hopped a healthy 8% which is about the historical average and isn’t too crazy high or too depressed. This is encouraging after last January’s drop in sales prices.
- The shows-to-pending (meaning how many people walk through a home with their agent before the home goes pending) is substantially down (20%), meaning it takes less shows to sell a house, which means the buyers who are out there are serious buyers but it’s also not ridiculously low wherein buyers have to act instantly or lose out.
- At a glance, this might seem to favor sellers, except median days on market are up, inventory is up (to about a two month’s supply), and pending and closed sales are down, meaning that Sellers are selling their homes at reasonable prices but buyers also have options that is keeping the market in control.
In short, year to date has been a “Goldilocks” year. A just right year so far. There are some homes to see, some homes to consider, a little bit of time to consider them, but they do sell, they sell in a reasonable timeframe, and they sell for a price that is commiserate with a fair market so that sellers are seeing a reasonable return on the extra year they held onto their homes but buyer’s aren’t paying a heavy premium just for being buyers in a sellers market. Both buyers and sellers are being reasonable, are benefitting, and are committed/serious when they make the decision to buy or to sell. Not too shabby!
I wish all years were this balanced!
Thank you for listening or reading this.
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