February 2022 highlights
The housing market in King County picked up a lot of steam in February, recovering from an end-of-year slow down to bounce back with a vengeance. It’s tough to parse out what is an increase due to inflation and what is due to the natural market cycle, but the 14% rise in prices from January to February this year far outpaces the increases in the same time period for the previous two years. Most metrics point to tighter competition with prices rising, inventory staying flat, and homes selling relatively quickly in both Seattle and on the east side of Lake Washington.
- Home prices rose at a greater rate this month than in the previous two years Average home prices closed out January on the low end of the market cycle at just under $770,000. But prices rose by more than 14% to hit nearly $890,000 between January and February of this year. Meanwhile, prices only rose 1% and 1.5% in the same time period in 2021 and 2020, respectively.
- Competition on the Eastside kept pace with Seattle The average selling price of a home on the Eastside rose by 15% from January to February. That increase was as equally uncharacteristic for the time period as the previous years saw a smaller jump.
- Inventory was almost perfectly flat despite the rise in prices Sellers responded to increasing selling prices by listing more homes. Instead of driving up inventory and calming competition, buyers bought homes within 6 days on average, keeping inventory flat.
- Buyers were willing to pay higher prices to win bids on homes The sale-to-list-price ratio was above 100% on both sides of Lake Washington, with the Eastside homes selling, on average, nearly 20% higher than their list price.
See previous months’ highlights
Competition report
Our research team analyzed the competition in select local areas.
Sale price
List price
Sale price compared to list price
Days on market
Number of properties listed
Number of properties pending sale
Seattle includes data for the city of Seattle.
Eastside includes data for Redmond, Bellevue, and Kirkland.