Are Puget Sound Housing Inventories Still Rising as the Market Heads into the Winter? (October 2026)
Short Answer: Yes, compared with a year ago. October active listings were up about 31% from a year ago across King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties, while closed and pending sales both fell by roughly 17%. Prices are softer, but the real story is how much slower buyers are moving.
Brokers have been telling me the same thing for months now. There is plenty of inventory out there, but buyers are taking their time. The October numbers back that up: inventory is up sharply and sales are down sharply. Here is what the data says.
What the October Numbers Say
Active Listings: All three counties saw the number of homes on the market rise, with King County up 33%, Snohomish County up 42%, and Pierce County up 20%.
New Listings: Sellers are still coming to market, but they don’t appear to be in a rush. New listings across the three-county area were up about 3% from last October. King County was up 6% and Snohomish County was up 9%, but Pierce County was down 10%.
Pending Sales: Pending sales fell 12% in King County, 10% in Snohomish County and 4% in Pierce County from September. Compared with last October, King was down 18%, Snohomish down 20% and Pierce down 14%.
Closed Sales: King County closed 1,756 sales, down 18% from a year ago. Snohomish County closed 692 (down 18%), and Pierce County closed 786 (down 12%).
Median Sale Prices, Single-Family Homes: Down 7% from last October in King County and 6% in Snohomish County, and up 1% in Pierce County. More on this below.
Median Sale Prices, Multifamily Homes: The multifamily median was $465,000 in King County (down 15%), $507,500 in Snohomish County (down 3%), and $389,500 in Pierce County (down 1%). Multifamily is a small share of sales, so these medians swing more from month to month.
Source: NWMLS
Why Inventory Is Building
The chart shows two things. First, listings follow the normal seasonal pattern, building through spring and summer, peaking in late summer or early fall and easing after that. Second, each year the peak was higher than the one before. King County peaked at nearly 5,000 in 2024, 6,300 in 2025 and above 8,000 this September. October’s dip is seasonal, not a reversal.
Sales are the other half of the story. When listings rise and closings fall, homes sit longer. A simple supply measure, active listings divided by the month’s closed sales, shows it. At October’s sales pace, active listings equal about 4.3 months of sales in King County, 4.1 in Snohomish County and 3.9 in Pierce County. A year ago, those figures were 2.7, 2.4 and 2.9. Every county has moved toward a balanced market, and King and Snohomish counties have moved the most.
What Happened to Single-Family Prices
Single-family homes are most of what sells here, so that median is the better read on prices. They were 81% of King County closings in October, 85% in Snohomish County, and 94% in Pierce County.
King County: The single-family median was $925,000. That is down 2.6% from September, down 7.2% from last October and about 10% below the $1,033,950 high in June 2025.
Snohomish County: The median was $724,450, down 3.4% from September and 5.9% from last October. It is 13% below the May 2025 high of $833,000, and 11% below October 2024.
Pierce County: The median was about $575,000, down 0.9% from September and up 0.9% from last October. It is 5% below this June’s high of about $605,000.
The all-homes median understates the drop in King County. It fell 4%, while single-family fell 7%. Multifamily was 22% of King closings last October and only 19% this October. Fewer lower-priced multifamily sales push the all-homes median up, so the single-family number shows the real softening in the largest part of the market.
What This Means For Brokers
Price to the market, not the neighbor’s old sale: With median prices down and more competition, a list price based on last year’s comps will sit.
Watch the multifamily segment: King County multifamily closed sales were down 30% from last October and the median price fell about 15% to $465,000. Small monthly samples swing a lot, so treat the median as a direction, not a precise number.
Use the supply shift with buyers. Buyers now have choices and time. Brokers who can show them why a well-priced home is worth acting on will close deals that others lose to hesitation.
Plan for a slow winter. Inventory normally falls into December and January, but it is starting from a much higher base this year. Sellers who list this winter will face more competition than in recent winters.
The Bottom Line
October confirmed a market with more homes, fewer buyers and softer prices across the Puget Sound. This is a real softening but not a collapse, and three things explain this.
First, sellers are not rushing for the exits. New listings were up only about 3% from a year ago, so inventory is building because homes are selling more slowly, not because owners are being forced to sell.
Second, supply is still close to balanced at about four months of sales in all three counties, well short of the glut that drives prices down hard.
Third, prices are giving back recent gains, not wiping out years of them. The King County single-family median is only about 4% below October 2024, and Pierce County is roughly where it was two years ago. That said, Snohomish County is the weak spot, down about 11% over the same two year period.
What I see as the biggest change is the balance, which has shifted toward buyers. Brokers who price and market to that reality will do better than those waiting for the market to swing back in sellers’ favor.
Comments