Maybe Things Aren't Better When Downtown? The SCMR for February, 2026

Welcome to March Madness!

Welcome to the latest and greatest edition of the Seattle Condo Market Review. I can't believe we're almost a quarter of the way through 2026! As always, to skip right to the stats, click here. For more detailed analysis, continue reading below.

To anybody not freshly new to Seattle and/or Seattle real estate, it's no surprise to read, again, about the challenging condo market within the downtown core. For context, that downtown core I define as being Belltown, downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill, First Hill, Eastlake, Westlake, and lower Queen Anne. Most condos have had their challenges over the recent years, but the downtown core has been hit particularly hard. 

Many of these reasons regarding the plight of the downtown core are known to everybody, but one thing not many have discussed is the surge in apartment construction. See below:

Apartment construction has been the thorne in the side of the condo resale market. With more supply hitting the market, that's driven down rents so much to the point that sometimes it's 50% cheaper, on a monthly payment comparison, to rent the same condo than purchase. I touched on this in a past writeup referencing some specific condo units with whom I've been in discussions with the owners about selling. 

I find a few trends really interesting. First, the dropoff in multifamily permitting applications from the 2016 peak. 2024 levels were roughly 10% of 2016!

Keep in mind, it takes 2-4 years from permitting to building completion so the peak of 2016 wasn't delivered until 2019-20 and we can expect permitting starting in 2022 and beyond to deliver less and less units starting this year and continuing into next year. This makes sense considering the meteoric rise in borrowing costs (interest rates) that began in 2022. As financing gets more expensive, less units are constructed, and less delivered. This should stabilize rents, if not even provide upward pressure, possibly making condo ownership more desirable than in recent years. This can be especially true if the downtown population continues to increase beyond 2025 all time records. 

To be clear, I'm not prophesying that this is the magic bullet to cure the condo market. Just as I said about the return to work orders, a possible FHA/VA approval savior, and now the lack of apartment supply. There are still exterior headwinds in affordability that persist, but this is true for every property type in every market.

Onto the stats: 

The February 2026 median sale price registered $596,275. That is down 4.6% YoY, but up MoM from $557,000. Inventory remains elevated at 19.6% more on the market YoY, but the months of inventory dropped to 4.64 months from 5.39 the month before.

Enjoy St. Patrick's Day, March Madness, and the Mariners opening up their 2026 season. Onward!