Seattle’s Housing Market Is Flashing Warning Signs

Ajouté : 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]There are 8,630 homes listed for sale across the Seattle metro right now. In a normal April, that would be about 4,600.

[00:00:11]Nick Gerli runs a real estate analytics firm called Reventure. He posted that data on X yesterday. Inventory has nearly doubled. King County values are already down 2.5% year-over-year.

[00:00:26]The typical Seattle metro home is still right around a million dollars. If you want to break that down, the monthly mortgage payment on that runs somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 a month. So, that's 84,000 to 96,000 a year just on the mortgage.

[00:00:47]The median household income around here is about $112,000 before taxes. After deductions, take home somewhere between 85 and 90,000 a year.

[00:00:58]So, the mortgage on a typical home eats virtually everything that household brings in.

[00:01:03]So, it isn't regular people cashing in on a hot market. Regular people still can't afford to buy. Some are downsizing. Some are leaving the state entirely, headed to Austin, Nashville, anywhere the math works.

[00:01:17]This state built its tax base on tech paychecks. We don't have a traditional income tax. We fund ourselves through a sales tax, the B&O tax, capital gains tax, among other things, and of course, the new millionaire income tax that just got signed. All of this depends on healthy, active, high-earning work forces.

[00:01:41]So, when a software engineer making $200,000 leaves Seattle for Nashville, Washington state loses the sales tax on everything they buy. We lose the revenue tied to their employer. We lose capital gains when they cash out their stock somewhere else. You multiply that across thousands of departures and the math gets ugly, fast.

[00:02:03]Now, layer on what every American feeling American family is feeling right now. Inflation that won't quit, grocery bills that doubled never came back down, Iran war and higher gas prices.

[00:02:17]Washington families are dealing with all of that on top of property taxes that keep climbing, climate commitment act surcharge that's stacked on top of one of the highest gas tax rates in the country. So, that's the picture. Tech paychecks shrinking, inflation eating savings, gas prices climbing again, mortgage math that does not work for normal earners.

[00:02:41]And Olympia has spent years adding programs, expanding commitments, telling voters that the revenue would be there.

[00:02:47]McCleary, Medicaid, homeless services, transit, climate commitment act. Every one of those was written assuming the tech economy would keep producing the tax base to pay for it.

[00:02:59]Well, that assumption is getting stress tested in real time. Moody's just gave the state a negative outlook. State ranks dead last in the country for financial reserves, last. We've been running on fumes while making long-term promises that depend on the good times rolling forever.

[00:03:17]And when a state's credit outlook drops, the state pays higher interest on the bonds that fund roads, schools, public projects. Same road, same school, just costs more.

[00:03:27]Washington has told itself for years, "We're different." That the tech economy insulates us. That the revenue base is deep enough to absorb whatever comes next.

[00:03:37]Now, we've doubled the state budget, stacked obligation on obligation, and we're sitting last in the country in financial reserves. The cushion is gone.

[00:03:48]The tax base is packing up.

[00:03:51]Uh Washington has seen downturns before.

[00:03:54]Boeing in the 70s, dot-com in 2001, the 2008 collapse. We got through all of them with a fraction of today's spending, none of today's long-term commitments, and none of today's programs.

[00:04:06]This is what the front edge of a recession looks like in a state that prepared for the opposite.