You have a pool or are considering adding a pool. Beyond your own personal enjoyment, how much will a pool add to your House’s value when or if you decide to sell?
Houses Sold and Houses Sold With Pools
Let’s look at the numbers. There were 40,680 houses sold in the Seattle area over the past five years, from January 2021 through end of June 2026. Of these, 270, or a fraction of 1% (0.7%) had pools.
Avg Sales Price Of Houses With Pools and Houses Without Pools
The average sales price of a House in Seattle with our without a pool is just north of a million dollars, or $1,095,426. If the House doesn’t have a pool? It dips below the average down to 1,087.380. Homes with pools sold for much higher prices on average (although that’s partly because they’re typically located in higher-value neighborhoods and tend to be larger homes – see below for analysis into this).
Average Sales Price By Pool Type
Not all pools are the same. NWMLS allows for four different types of pools: Above Ground, In-Ground, Indoor and Community (for example, North Beach has a community pool). How much does the pool type impact the sales price? By quite a bit! Indoor pools are a pure injection of price adrenaline, boosting the sales price over a House without a pool by an average of 273%, with in-ground pools a distant second at 130%. Community pools are entrenched in third and Above Ground pools are a modest increase by comparison.
Is It The Pool Or The Neighborhood
Before concluding that pools add value, we need to account for where those homes are located. Pools are much more common in neighborhoods like Magnolia than in many other Seattle neighborhoods, and location alone has a major effect on price. In total, 42% of the neighborhoods in Seattle had a house that sold with a pool since January 2021.
Houses in neighborhoods with pools sell for 42% more on average. But to determine if being the house with a pool in those neighborhoods adds more to that house’s sales price, we can compare the sales price of homes that sold with pools to homes that didn’t have pools. On average, selling a house with a pool in pool-friendly neighborhoods added more than $600,000 (52%) to the sales price. So, yes, in general the neighborhood has an influence, but so does the pool itself.
Is It The Pool Or The Size Of The House?
Finally, are homes with pools simply worth more because they’re larger? Let’s take a look…
Looking at the data, homes with pools are generally larger than homes without pools. In particular, homes with indoor and in-ground pools tend to be significantly larger. And, of course, larger homes typically sell for more. However, if we compare the increase in sales price for each pool type with the corresponding increase in average home size, the data suggest that the higher prices of homes with pools cannot be explained by square footage alone. Even after accounting for home size, pools still appear to contribute meaningful value.
Bottom line
In Seattle, a pool is associated with substantially higher sale prices. Some of that premium comes from larger homes and higher-end neighborhoods, but even after accounting for those factors, pools appear to add meaningful value in many parts of the market. Like most real estate questions, however, the answer depends on the specific property and neighborhood.
Thinking about installing a pool? The return on investment depends heavily on your neighborhood. In some areas of Seattle, buyers expect pools and may pay a premium. In others, the investment may be harder to recover. If you’re considering adding a pool primarily for resale value, I’d be happy to run comparable sales for your neighborhood.
Questions about buying or selling?
Rob Mathison provides weekly Seattle market insights and works alongside Larissa Wilson, one of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northwest’s top-producing REALTORS®, helping buyers and sellers throughout the Seattle area.
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Rob Mathison Larissa Wilson
Rob: RobMathison@BHHSNW.com. Larissa: 206.409.5962
Berkshire Hathaway Services Northwest
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