Seattle Area Housing Inventory Continues to Shift Towards a More Balanced Market

The Seattle and Puget Sound housing inventory numbers for July 2009 show that the real estate market is continuing to become more balanced.  In the heat maps below red indicates a seller's market, green indicates a buyer's market, and yellow indicates a balanced market.

(Click on the map to see a larger image.)

A seller's market is generally defined as 0 to 3 months worth of remaining inventory, meaning the time it would take to sell everything on the market if no new homes were listed, while a buyer's market is generally seen as 6 months or more.

(Because of the traditionally high real estate activity level and shorter market times in the Puget Sound area, some people feel that a buyer's market for Seattle area real estate starts at under 6 months of remaining inventory.)

There were some trade-offs, notably the Redmond and Sammamish plateau markets moving from a buyer's to a balanced market, while the south Bellevue and Issaquah regions made the opposite shift.