Contact: data@mbaks.com

The housing market in Washington experienced growth, with 24 out of 26 counties reporting a year-over-year increase in available homes. Overall, active property listings in Washington counties covered by NWMLS rose by 41%. The month's supply of housing inventory as of May 2024 is at 1.5 in King County and 1.2 in Snohomish county.

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By MBAKS Senior Policy Analyst Allison Butcher

On Sept. 15, the third annual Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties Housing Summit drew a large crowd as we addressed our region's housing affordability crisis.

Governor Jay Inslee offered the keynote speech highlighting the need to produce more housing units and find greater efficiencies in our permit and regulatory processes. Other speakers included Windermere economist Matthew Gardner; Solid Ground President and CEO Gordon McHenry Jr.; John DesCamp of Washington Trust Bank; and Peter Orser, the director of the University of Washington's Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies.

An exclusive video detailing the struggles families face buying a home in today's market was produced for the Summit. You can also view photos from the event.

Next Steps

The Housing Summit helps launch and build momentum for your association's legislative priorities in Olympia. Housing affordability will be the focal point of those efforts in 2017 and beyond. The MBA has identified a number of areas where we plan to focus our advocacy efforts with the hope of improving housing affordability for all of our region's residents.

Specifically, the MBA will continue working to focus policy action on our region's buildable land supply; restore and protect vested development rights; address condo construction defect liability; ensure funding for housing and homeless programs occurs parallel with increased housing supply; and incentivize affordable housing. We have shared these priorities with Governor Inslee's Affordable Housing Advisory Board (AHAB) and are making sure our voice is heard in Olympia.

The MBA also surveyed Housing Summit attendees to get their thoughts on how we can address the housing affordability crisis and we are taking this feedback into consideration. Ideas include such things as increased densities in single family neighborhoods, more focus on multifamily housing, reforming the Growth Management Act, concentrating resources on infrastructure, addressing the skilled labor shortage in the construction industry, and taking further steps to address the homeless crisis.

For more on the specific ideas discussed at the Housing Summit, the Seattle King County REALTORS® wrote this re-cap of the event and the Lens featured it here.

Contact: data@mbaks.com

Housing Market Shows Modest Inventory Gains Amid Rising Prices and Slowing Construction

Housing inventory in King and Snohomish counties improved slightly in March 2025 but remains below healthy market levels, with King County at 1.9 months' supply and Snohomish County at 1.4. Median home prices continued to rise, reaching $977,500 in King County and $790,000 in Snohomish County for single-family homes. Builder confidence declined sharply, with the national Housing Market Index falling 22% year over year to 40 and the Western regional index at 35. Construction activity also slowed, as single-family and multifamily permits in the Seattle metro area fell 6% and 5% respectively compared to last year, and Washington’s construction employment dropped by over 12,000 jobs.

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