Holiday season is here, and with it has come the annual slowdown of the real estate market, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS). However, market stats improved from 2023, according to the association’s latest report.

New listings dropped 38.3% month over month, but rose 3.8% year over year, with 4,768 properties added to the MLS. Over 1,400 of those new listings were in King County.

Pending listings fell 23.4% month over month, but jumped 17.9% year over year as 5,516 homes went under contract in November. Pending listings increased annually in 20 of the 26 counties in the NWMLS footprint, with the highest year-over-year bumps seen in Clark (+50%), Skagit (+40.6%) and Mason (+38%) counties.

Closings, meanwhile, decreased 15.9% month over month, but rose 24.7% year over year, with 5,446 homes sold.

Prices decreased marginally from October, with a median home price of $645,000 across the region. However, that’s up 7.3% year over year. The median home price was considerably higher in San Juan ($857,500), King ($837,350) and Snohomish ($760,000) counties.

Stephen Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington, told NWMLS that prices will likely improve due to recent legislation intended to increase housing density in residential areas. “It will take time for these new laws to actually produce new housing, but the expectation is that they will help in an important way to moderate the cost of homeownership,” he said.