Last month brought some long-awaited, positive news for buyers with May posting the most new listings in over a decade. Despite the uptick in inventory, most homes are selling in less than a month. Prices haven’t been impacted either, with the majority of the region continuing to experience double-digit home price increases.

Eastside

>>>Click image to view full report.

The median home price on the Eastside hit an all-time high of $960, 000 in May; a 10 percent gain over the same time last year. While there were a third more homes for sale in May than a year ago, the area still had only about a month of available inventory. Three to six months is considered a balanced market. Redmond, a city with a population of 64,000, currently has only 51 single-family homes on the market.

King County

>>>Click image to view full report.

First the good news: Those looking to buy a home in King County in May had almost 1,000 more homes to choose from compared to the previous month. The bad news: That boost in inventory did little to moderate home prices. The median price for a single-family home jumped 15 percent to $726,275, up slightly from the record high set in April.

Seattle

>>>Click image to view full report.

A strong economy and desirable lifestyle have kept Seattle a leading destination for job-seekers. The ever-increasing demand for housing has sapped supply and sent prices soaring. For 19 months Seattle has led the nation in rising home prices.  May saw the city set yet another record, with the median home price jumping 14 percent to $830,000.

Snohomish County

>>>Click image to view full report.

Soaring prices in King County combined with rising interest rates make Snohomish County an affordable alternative for those willing to extend their commute time.  The typical home cost $500,000 in May, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year, and down very slightly from last month.

By Mike Rosenberg  Seattle Times real estate reporter

Houses with yards and driveways aren’t just for homeownership: You might be surprised to know that 1 in 6 single-family houses across the Seattle metro area is actually rented out.

Single-family home rentals are especially important for families who can’t squeeze into a 1-bedroom apartment but don’t have the money to buy a house. They also are an option for groups of young singles to save on rent by splitting a bigger space.

Now there is finally good news for them after years of steep rent hikes – and there’s a chance that could ultimately help lead to relief in the homebuying market, as well.

Rents in local single-family homes rose a paltry 0.4 percent in February from a year ago, according to a new report from the real-estate data firm CoreLogic.

That’s by far the smallest growth since the company began tracking the data in 2011, and is way down from the average single-family rent hike of 5.8 percent this decade.

And the shift has been sudden: Last year, rents rose about 4 percent. Just two years ago, rents were soaring as much as 9 percent annually.

“One, two, three years ago, we would literally have people move out and we’d be there to do a quick cleaning, and change the locks, and have someone literally move in a couple hours later. We didn’t lose a day of rent,” said Chris Benis, who rents out a dozen houses on the Eastside. Some tenants would even rent houses sight unseen.

But in the last couple months, two of his houses became vacant and drew just one tenant application each, and it took about a month to rent out each house. “We didn’t have people banging down the door to rent” them, Benis said.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can suddenly rent a house on the cheap. Across the entire metro area – spanning from Tacoma to Everett – the average house now rents for $2,730 a month, according to CoreLogic. Compare that with $3,590 in Los Angeles – but $2,020 in Miami, $1,950 in Chicago, and $1,770 in Austin.

Why is this happening?

At first blush, this new trend of slow rent growth makes sense – it lines up with what we’ve been seeing in the rest of the rental market here. Rents at Seattle-area apartment buildings have also cooled way down recently, and are actually below their highs reached last summer.

To read full article in Seattle Times, click here.

Seattle has topped the list again and has now surpassed Austin, Texas! It is the nation’s fastest-growing big city this decade. According to the Seattle Times, “the city’s population hit an estimated 725,000, gaining 17,500 people from July 1^st, 2016 to July 1^st, 2017. Our growth rate in that period – 2.5 percent – was second only to Atlanta among the 50 largest U.S. cities.”

Since 2010, Seattle has grown 18.7 percent in population gains. Interesting fact! The Seattle Times states that “Seattle’s population increased by 114,000 in the first seven years of this decade – that’s around the same amount it grew in the previous 30 years, back to 1980.” We are not surprised to see these numbers with the tech industry still booming bringing more and more people into this city and surrounding areas. In fact, Seattle added more people in 2017 than all the suburbs in King County combined.

Another interesting trend from the census data was that more and more larger U.S. cities are shrinking in population size. Not in Washington State. Auburn and Redmond tied at 3.1 percent as the “fastest-growing cities in Washington State.” Bellevue landed at 2.3 percent.

To read the full article from the Seattle Times, click here.