2018 Seattle Real Estate Market Reality Check

Every year during the winter in Seattle, the real estate market goes through a sort of “reset” period. It’s never completely clear as to what the real estate market will bring in the year ahead—during the winter months, all of the comparable sold homes we’re looking at are from the year before, and we need to get some indicators (aka sold homes!) so we can start making predictions.

We’ve seen several years of real estate in Seattle, and after living through ups and downs, we’re confident in our ability to forecast what 2018 will bring! Now that we’re into late February and things have “reset,” our guesses as to what will happen in 2018 are a lot more reliable.

Below, we’ve shared our 2018 Seattle real estate predictions for several different neighborhoods in the city. For our comparable property, we’re going to focus on townhomes; they’re consistent across the board in each neighborhood, and they’re a reliable tell of what price points are doing.

More specifically, we’re talking about modern townhomes built after 2015 with 3 bedrooms, at least 2 baths, and between 1,500 and 1,800 square feet.

Here are our predictions for each neighborhood:

Ballard

• Current median price: $950s
• End of 2018 median price: Slightly over $1 million
• Note: Probably hitting a price cap because of traffic

Capitol Hill

• Current median price: Currently at $1.15 to $1.2 million
• End of 2018 median price: Will probably hit $1.35 million

Central District

• Current median price: Hovering around $820k
• End of 2018 median price: Will hit $900k, maybe even up to $920k

Columbia City

• Current median price: Currently at about $750k
• End of 2018 median price: Will probably hit low to mid-$800s

Eastlake: modern townhome about a 1,000,050 think they will hit 1.15, 1.16

• Current median price: Just over $1 million
• End of 2018 median price: Will hit $1.15 or $1.16 million

Fremont

• Current median price: $950s
• End of 2018 median price: Will hit $1.1 million

Green Lake Proper

• Current median price: $950k
• End of 2018 median price: Just over $1 million
• Note: We’re talking specifically west of I-5 , east of Aurora, and south of 85th

North Green Lake

• Current median price: $780k
• End of 2018 median price: Closer to $900s

Judkins

• Current median price: Around $750k
• End of 2018 median price: Low $800s

Leschi (East of MLK)

• Current median price: Mid-$700s
• End of 2018 median price: Expect high $700s, maybe as high as $790

Lower Queen Anne:

• Current median price: Currently about $1.25 million
• End of 2018 median price: Maybe $1.31 million
• Note: Queen Anne is especially suffering from traffic congestion right now, so things are really leveling out

Madison Valley

• Current median price: $900k
• End of 2018 median price: $1 million
• Note: In the first part of 2017, you could still get a townhome(with the specs we mentioned) here for $800. By the end of 2017, they were already at $900k; it was ridiculous—prices shot up significantly.

Mount Baker

• Current median price: Around the mid-$600s
• End of 2018 median price: Expect high $600s and slightly over $700k

North Beacon Hill

• Current median price: Already in the $820s, a 10% increase from last year’s low $700s price point
• End of 2018 median price: We predict home prices will reach just over $900k

Ravenna

• Current median price: $875k
• End of 2018 median price: Might hit a little over $1 million

Roosevelt

• Current median price: $850k
• End of 2018 median price: Might hit a bit over $900k

Wallingford

• Current median price: $1.1 million
• End of 2018 median price: $1.2 million

Keep in mind that this is all only meant to give you a general idea of the growth you can expect in certain neighborhoods, and these are by no means guarantees.

If you have any questions about your particular home or questions about a neighborhood you’re interested in, feel free to get in touch here!