July Housing Report: Inventory Climbs Nearly 20% Over Year Ago
Aug 5, 2026, 9:27 AM
425 Magazine
Total active home listings in July increased 19.8% year-over-year, reaching 24,888 homes on the market, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service announced Tuesday in its monthly housing report for the 27 counties it serves.
In King and Snohomish counties, inventory rose almost 24% and 35%, respectively, from July 2025. Twenty-five of the 27 counties showed year-over-year inventory growth, continuing the market’s gradual shift toward more balanced conditions, the NWMLS said.
Higher mortgage rates continued to influence buyer activity in July. Closed sales decreased 3.2% from July 2025, pending sales declined 7.2%, and the median sales price for single-family homes and condominiums combined decreased 1.5% to $640,000, according to the NWMLS report.
The combined median sales price in King County last month as $879,500, up 0.5% from a year ago. For single-family homes only, the median was $995,000, down 0.5%. For condos, the median was $519,975, down 1.9%.
On the county’s Eastside, the submarket of Bellevue west of Interstate 405 had the highest median sales price in July for a single-family home, $3.3 million on 21 sales, down from $4.3 million a year ago on 25 sales.
In Snohomish County, the combined median sales price was $719,000, down 6%. For single-family homes only, the median sales price was $757,250, down 5.9%. For condos only, it was $500,000, down 5.7%. The county’s southeast submarket posted the highest median for single-family homes, almost $1.1 million, down from nearly $1.2 million a year ago.
“In July, the housing market in the NWMLS service area continued to display greater interest on the part of sellers, with active inventory increasing nearly 20% year over year,” Steven Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research, said in the NWMLS report. “However, this has not been matched by an increase in transactions with both numbers of sales and median prices dropping relative to a year earlier, by 3% and 1.5%, respectively.”
“Interest rates, which averaged over 6.5% during the month (slightly higher than the previous month), continued to discourage buyers,” Bourassa continued. “The Federal Reserve Bank’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) kept short-term interest rates unchanged when they met late in the month due to the ongoing pressures of high inflation stemming from the continuing war with Iran. Expectations are that the FOMC will increase short-term rates later this year and early next year, implying that longer-term rates are also likely to go up.”
