Paint color has the power to enhance value — or tank it.

May’s priciest Seattle-area home sale was a lakefront midcentury mansion on Mercer Island.

Inventory rose 3.3% month over month and 0.6% year over year to 1.55 million homes, which equals a 4.5-month supply of unsold inventory, NAR said. 

In this latest Local Look, Windermere Real Estate Principal Economist Jeff Tucker breaks down a “relatively quiet” spring selling season that proved to be “unusually buyer-friendly.”

Buyers had 21,381 northwest Washington homes to shop during the month, the highest inventory level of the year so far.

Nationwide, it takes six years to break even on homeownership, down from an all-time high of 8.4 years in 2023.

Amid what Realtor.com called the most active spring in years, the housing market is finding a new equilibrium.

Looking ahead, Cotality expects home prices to rise 5.3% between April 2026 and April 2027. 

This month, we’re sharing the 10 most expensive new listings for sale in Cle Elum.

The median sales price of new homes sold in April rose 8% to $422,500 from $391,100 in March, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported.

Home prices continued to rise in March, but the rate of increase slowed yet again, according to the latest S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Home Price Index. 

Overall, Seattle ranked fifth for affordability, eighth for education and childcare and 16th for socioeconomics.

Redfin reports there were about 46.5% more sellers than buyers in April 2026, down from 47.5% in March and 48.9% in December 2025.

Houzz compared first quarter user activity to year-ago levels to determine the emerging home trends for summer 2026. Here’s what they found.

Despite a monthly decline, the rate of new-home construction still came in above consensus estimates. 

Among the top 50 metro areas, Boston and Miami led the pack.