Throw us a lifeline! The Seattle Condo Market Update, September 2025

Welcome to the latest edition of the Seattle condo market update. As always, you can skip the good stuff and go right to the stats by clicking here. For more detailed, and hopefully entertaining info, continue reading below!

I've got to admit, each month I struggle trying to find new material for this writeup. The Seattle condo market has been stuck in the mud for so long that I feel like Bill Murray from Groundhog's Day where each month I see the same data and forcibly try to create new stories out of nothing. For those of you who have soldiered on reading these, I genuinely appreciate you and hopefully one day these reports will kick it up a few notches from an entertainment and value perspective.

(This is me assessing the health of the condo market month after month)

If you have access to the Seattle Times, you can read an article I contributed to here discussing one of the problems with the current market. The problem I refer to in the article is that the monthly cost of a mortgage compared to renting a similar property has really widened. 

For example, look at this Belltown condo that's currently for sale. If a buyer were to purchase this home by putting 20% down, their total mortgage payment (at 6.25%) would be $2,900. Yet a similar 1 bedroom unit in this building just rented in early August for $2,225/month. That's a $675/month difference in monthly payment! Furthermore, this condo currently for sale was purchased back in 2019 for $433,000 (currently listed for $389k). Tell me what is attractive to consumers looking at paying a 30% monthly premium for an asset that's been, let's face it, borderline toxic over the past 7-8 years. 

Owning has almost always been more expensive on a monthly housing payment comparison, but the long term benefit homeowners could safely bet on was appreciation. Yet appreciation, for a number of years, has not been the consistent savior it's historically been. To be fair, there are still tax and other advantages that help highlight the pros of homeownership, but they often don't outweigh the superficial savings consumers see when there's a staggering distance in monthly living costs like we're currently seeing between a mortgage and rent. 

However, that margin between the cost of renting vs buying might be changing, and might not favor renters as much as it currently does. See this Seattle Times article highlighting the lack of apartment construction and some of the more powerful highlights below:

"Across King County, local governments permitted fewer multifamily units in 2024 than they did in any year of the prior decade. The slowdown appears to be here to stay for now. In Seattle, apartment permitting was down 66% in the first six months of this year, compared with the same period a year ago."

"For renters, this decline means they will likely find fewer available apartments and higher rent increases in the years to come, as the market absorbs a glut of apartments permitted during ultralow interest rate pandemic years."

"This year, Seattle is now on track to experience one of its slowest years for apartment permitting since at least 2018."

There's no saying that the dynamics will make a 180 degree turn around and revert to what we became accustomed to during the 2010's, but it does appear that we might be starting to exit the most renter friendly period we've seen in a very long time. I know in past reports I've identified variables that could provide relief to the Seattle condo market (RTO mandates, FHA/VA condo approvals, and now a slowdown in apartment building), but nothing has single handedly, or collectively, made any dent in the hemorrhaging condo market. In fact, the absorption rate this month was the lowest since September of last year, which was an all-time low in the time I've been measuring it.

Onto the stats!

The median sale price for a Seattle condo in August 2025 was $595,000. That is up 7.2% YoY and up from $550,000 MoM. Inventory remains elevated at 23.6% more homes on the market than the same month last year. The months of inventory statistic didn't change MoM as there's still 5.1 months of inventory. 

Enjoy the last week of summer. Bring on fall! Onward!