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Hi. I’m Jeff Tucker, principal economist at Windermere Real Estate, and this is a Local Look at the May 2026 data from the Northwest MLS.
As we approach the end of the spring selling season, we can now say it was a bit disappointing for sellers. On the flipside, that means this summer will likely provide some bargains for buyers who are in a position to act.
Across the entire Northwest MLS, there were 2% fewer closed sales in May 2026 than in May of last year – the same drop we saw in April. Pending home sales ticked up by 1% from last year.
The big news in this month’s release was on the supply side, where the flow of new listings was 4% less than in May of 2025 – that’s the first slowdown in new listings all year. Finally, the month ended with just over 17,500 active listings around the MLS, or 17% more than last May, after it was up 30% in April. That tells me sellers have picked up on the softer demand signals this spring and they’ve begun to pull back. That’ll be an important trend to track in the months ahead to see if it continues.
The median sale price ticked down from last May, by just $2500, leaving it basically flat at $675,000.
Now I’ll take a closer look at the four counties encompassing the greater Seattle area.
Closed sales declined by 2%, or about 80 homes, from last May around the region. Snohomish and Pierce Counties led that decline by 5% each, while King County was flat and Kitsap saw sales pick up a bit. Still, that left King County well below 2024’s sales volume.
Median sale prices were flat, or down slightly, all around the region – down the most, by 4%, in Snohomish County to $800,000, while they’ve inched down to $975,000 here in King County.
Looking ahead, pending sales were flat around the region, with a drop of 3% in King County. That’s a little ambiguous, though, because this May did end on a Sunday, when pending sales are rarely recorded. For that reason I expect a little pickup in pending sales in June.
On the supply side, the 4-county greater Seattle area ended the month with only 18% more active listings than last May, a sharp slowdown from the 37% growth in April. Every county saw a sharp slowdown in the growth of active listings, which could mark an inflection point in this cycle.
All in all, the local housing data painted a picture of an unusually buyer-friendly spring selling season this May here in the greater Seattle area, as prices cool down slightly and sales activity falls short of last year’s. Now we are approaching the time of year with peak inventory, and near-peak buying activity, so I still expect plenty of time for more buyers to find the right home, amid a slightly less frenzied setting. If geopolitical news improves and mortgage rates come back down toward 6%, the market could even catch a second wind; but in the meantime, the data suggests that sellers benefit now more than ever from a professional, polished listing when they go to sell their house in this quiet late spring market.
