Can we exit this ride? The Seattle condo market update, April 2025
Welcome to the latest edition of the Greater Seattle Housing Market Update. As always, to skip the good stuff and go straight to me sputtering out the facts, you can watch by clicking here.
What a time to be alive! Holy cow, unless you've been living in a cave year to date (in which case, I'm jealous), you've been relentlessly distracted with all that's going on in the finance world. Tariffs, interest rates, crashing/surging stock markets, etc. Every day seems to be more volatile than the last, making this the most turbulent financial roller coaster I can remember.
(BTW, I hate roller coasters. Unforutunately, I have zero tolerance for motion sickness stuff so these are torture for me). Perhaps equally as nauseating as a real roller coaster has been the economic roller coaster we've experienced since Trump (re)entered office. Take a look at some of the charts below.
The S&P is down over 7% YTD. Not alarming had this decline been gradual, but just look at the volatility over the past few weeks!
The same goes for the tech heavy Nassaq. I pay particular attention to the Nasdaq because many of our tech employees source the funds for their down payment through their vested stock. Thus, the more that stock dwindles away, the less down payment they have for a potential purchase.
One historical silver lining in stock market volatility is that it induces traders into shifting portfolios into bonds, thus applying downward pressure on mortgage rates. The above is the 10 year bond, which most closely parallels the 30 year mortgage.
That being said, mortgage rates haven't dropped that much in relation to how much the stock markets have imploded. In fact, during the week of April 7th, when equity markets were getting absolutely hammered, rates increased! There was a brief moment where rates were in the mid 6's before the coil sprung back and returned to the high 6's during the middle of the tariff exchanges.
How this impacts the local real estate market remains to be seen. Anecdotally, it feels just like every other spring selling season, which is extremely competitive for buyers. So far, I don't see much pullback from buyers.
Onto the stats:
The median sale price for a Seattle condo in March 2025 was $627,650. That is up YoY 6.8% and up MoM from $625,000. Inventory remains high at up 54.7% YoY and the months of inventory statistic came in at 3.22 months, a bit lower than 3.51 last month.
Bottom line, this isn't the first time we've experienced turbulent economic times. The above chart was put together by a lending partner of mine, Kyle Bergquist of Cross Country Mortgage, that timestamps all the wild economic events over the past few decades and how Puget Sound home values have responded. Remember, it's not about timing the market, it's about time in the market. We simply lack the supply to meet the demand and I don't see that changing pending monumental shifts in the regional economy.
