Northwest now is supported in part by viewers like you.

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trying to buy an affordable home in western Washington means looking far and wide and suffering in traffic.

But our price is starting to moderate.

Maybe not dropping substantially yet, but at least dropping or flattening a little.

That's the discussion tonight on our 14th annual program, talking about what may be your biggest investment your home.

The presidents of the King and Pierce County realtor associations are in-studio, along with our longtime mortgage guru, Robert Lipton.

The state of the housing market is next on northwest now.

If you bought a house during the Great Recession, you got a good deal and your value has skyrocketed.

Now, bear in mind, that's not to say your investment has it appreciated.

If you bought fairly recently, it has.

But there's always the fear of being the last person to buy.

Hi.

Just before prices go low.

Housing is a little different, though it's not as liquid and its use case meets a basic need.

That being shelter.

Market highs and lows are only seen in hindsight.

So the question now is whether this is the time to get out of your apartment if you want to, or if you're looking to downsize.

Maybe if there's an opportunity to get out fairly high and at least not have to be in a panic to buy the next thing, maybe tax policy has hit the whole state.

So let's start by looking at the Northwest Multiple Listing Services statewide data Properties listed for sale are up 28% year over year.

that aggressive move to sell comes despite the fact median prices are flat.

So it's not about cashing in on a new price boom.

It may be about getting out while prices are hanging in there a little bit.

Despite all the new inventory, sales are down by about 4% statewide, so buyers are cautious, meaning the only remedy for sellers may be the lower prices.

Zooming in now on King Pearson Home in Thurston County, just look at the trends listings are up sharply with between two and a half and three months of supply, with six months being a balanced market.

So for now, these numbers indicate Metro Puget Sound is still hanging on to being a bit of a seller's market.

But that's not as true in certain areas.

Again, buyers are cautious with sales flat and prices down in King County at about flat.

For the others joining us now are Seattle King County Realtors President Cheyenne Gillooly, Tacoma, Pierce County Association of Realtors president Jenna Mehan and Evergreen Home Loans executive vice president Robert Lipton.

Welcome all of you to northwest.

Now great to have our annual conversation about the state of the real estate market here in Western Washington.

And as usual, we try to get the presidents of Seattle, King County and Tacoma, Pierce.

And of course, our mortgage guru Robert here with us today, I'm starting with a little segment called Is It True?

And Cheyenne, we'll start with you.

I'm the big talking point in King County right now.

Is that the high end, the ultra high end, they are all selling secretly trying to get out of here to avoid taxes and estate plans and real estate, excise taxes and all the things some say.

Luxury listing spiked 65% the day after the income tax was passed.

So is it true?

And do you have any insight into that, or do you think it's overblown?

What are you hearing out there?

Yes and no.

There's truthiness to that.

It's, it's Spring Market, right.

Homes that are over $2 million, they don't flip the light switch in and go on right away.

I would probably agree it takes significant work to get a home like that on the market.

So we're monitoring it and know Washington Realtors is looking at it too.

We're not really seeing anything that's out of the ordinary for this time of year really.

So maybe that's a little hype.

It's a little hype.

There's probably some truthiness to it, like every headline, but but nothing.

And and in a way that's, causing us to be alarmed by it at this time.

Jen.

And one of the other things out there, is it true, is that some of the conversation has been there's a lot of been a lot of false throws, people coming up to a deal, getting there looks good.

And then kaboom, because of the Iran war or inflation or the mortgage didn't fund or the appraisal didn't happen or whatever it may be.

Is it true or are there a lot of false crews going on out there?

Not so much.

What are you hearing?

I definitely have seen a lot more fall through than before.

I think that, buyers, you know, they get coffee, they start talking to their friends, they start seeing the headlines, and, you know, they get they get cold feet, and they just start thinking about it a little bit more.

Can I afford this?

Can I not?

Also, people's jobs, you know, are tending to get a little bit shakier than they used to be in industries that used to not be shaky, such as the tech industry and stuff.

You know, that used to be a pretty steady income, and people weren't worried about losing those jobs.

And now we're seeing those a little bit more on the shaky end.

So you are kind of seeing people, get a little bit more nervous and very like little tiny inspection items.

If they can get out on those, you're seeing like deals fall through over like 1500 bucks, you know, $1,000, little tiny things if they can't get their way, and they can find a way to back out, they are backing out.

So that I will say is true.

All right, Robert, interest rates aren't don't seem to be coming down.

And, you know, the inflation report has come out just today with this airs a couple of weeks from taping it.

But I mean, the inflation news isn't good, which means the fed really can't sit there and just, take rates down, which is going to affect the ten year Treasury bill.

And you've explained that to how those levers work to us in the past.

So, mortgage rates coming down, just wait for a good rate.

Is it true or.

No, you better get in there.

What's your take?

What are you hearing?

I would say you better buy now, because if you don't, you lose the opportunity.

At generational wealth and the real estate transactions, the largest transaction you'll ever make.

And if you don't get into it, you won't start building equity and you won't be able to move up someday.

Interest rates are staying steady.

As I just said, off air over the last 50 years, the average is like 7.73% and we're setting way below that.

So interest rates are staying steady.

You may see a decrease.

We just had Kevin Warsh confirmed in this afternoon.

Lots and lots of noise in the marketplace about that.

There's a lot of hope in, in the market about it.

But I will say, two weeks ago, we had the largest fallout of, people that were locked in the interest rates than we have in since 2021.

It was a national average.

There was more purchase and sales dropped out of than like five year period.

So why do you think, there is something called a war?

There is.

Okay.

So headline price and headline up.

There's market volatility you have in this marketplace.

Like we said, the tech industry that a lot of the bigs did layoffs this year that they haven't in a long time.

So and the market impact it's it's all about volatility and fear.

One last thing though.

The every report says that people have been sitting for four years waiting for that next thing that happened.

Yeah.

The baby boomers have wanted to buy down.

There's been no inventory.

Now all of a sudden the millennials have slowed down a little bit in buying.

So the baby boomers have been buying now and getting off the fence and selling and buying.

And so, everybody's been waiting and they're out there now and they're there.

They're in the housing market.

So maybe that lock in effect, you know, I'm 60 years old with a 3% interest rate, and I'm not selling into a 7% rate or 4% rate or whatever it may be.

That may be breaking a little.

You say con people want the bigger house, the batter house, the the acreage.

They want to move, they want to get out.

They've expanded their families.

They need to get into a new home or buy down.

So people are doing it.

Also, Monday was the biggest rate lock day of 2026 because of fear and what happened.

Interest rates came way up, were down 50 basis points out because of my situation.

That's right.

Okay.

2025 were down about 30 to 50 basis points.

And based on if you bought a house last year versus buying a house this year, you're still if you had bought a house last year at the lower amount, whatever the amount is $50,000 less, your payment would still be more than if you had waited till today.

All right, all right.

You know, like they say, hindsight's 2022.

Exactly right.

Here's the by law, I have to make this joke every year.

And of course, I stipulate that every realtor will always tell you that now is a great time to buy.

So I'm as if we're in a court of law.

I'm stipulating that that the realtor view on this is now is a great time to buy.

And I think there's, you know, some truth to it, some truthiness to it as well.

So Sharon in King County, what are you telling buyers?

What are you telling sellers in light of higher consumer prices, tech layoffs that we've mentioned, and a 7% median price drop in King County, year over year with flat sales.

So tell me what you're telling both sides.

If you get a listing, what are you telling them?

And if you got a buyer, that you're inquiring around, what are you telling them?

Well, I think the days of putting your home on the market and and setting a price and and just getting those ten offers and assuming that it's going to go exactly as planned, those days are over.

I think strategy matters more than anything.

And really taking a look at like, what's your competition is because we do have more homes on the market.

Buyers do have choices, right?

And so there's definitely more strategy involved and understanding that and setting those expectations and and pricing does really matter.

For my buyers, you know, they do have more choice.

There is a lot more inventory I think the education around what to expect.

And you referenced, you know, what they want, right?

Like they want the house, they want the yard, they want the they want to downsize, whatever it may be.

I think limiting that scope is problematic when we aren't considering the different types of housing that they could get into.

For lack of a better way of putting it.

I referenced over that Mash game that you played when you were a kid where it was like mansion, apartment, shack, house, and you're like, no, not a shack, right?

Like, and you would go through this whole thing when you're like in fourth grade, that we have so much more opportunity for housing.

Now.

We've got cottage housing, we've got daddy housing, we've got people that are downsizing, moving into their dad is selling the big house, moving in their families, multi-generational opportunities.

I think we need to do a better job of explaining it to consumers and quite frankly, our industry as realtors.

Okay.

Pierce County was always kind of a relief valve for King County.

You could drive a little, get down to peers, find the kind of look at some of these options that Shane was talking about, find that at a reasonable price and all the things that has changed, you know, affordability.

I do the annual thing with the, horizons purchase with the chamber.

Pierce County, Pierce Tacoma, Chamber of Commerce.

That median price, that affordability line has not dropped much.

Pierce County really?

Is it kind of the, cheap real estate panacea it used to be.

So what are you telling buyers and sellers?

Are you seeing changes?

Do you think faster than King County?

So what's your approach and how are you how you advising both sides of any deal that you're involved in.

Yeah.

So I mean we still are cheaper than King County.

And actually I just went to economic thing couple weeks ago and Pierce County, we actually did see a little bit of price increase, versus King County, I think we were up like 1.6% like month over month or something like that.

So we are still seeing a little bit of, of price increase, which is good.

We also still our employment is different down here.

So we still have, you know, we have the port, we have military, and we have some jobs that I think are a little bit less affected than the King County job market just was.

So, but again, same thing.

You know, we do have more inventory.

So again, price is very important.

But when things are priced right, things are still selling.

And they're selling fast.

So you know, it's not again, just throw it on the market like it needs to be very well marketed.

Pictures need to be dialed.

The house needs to be dialed.

You know, all those little repair items and stuff need to be completed.

And and it's not just throw it on the market and see what happens.

Like it need the price needs to be right.

You don't want to be chasing the market down.

You want to price it for what you want to get in front of that stair step.

Exactly.

And if you are, you're seeing things sell still and, you know, 3 to 5 days or I even have seen I just had one last week that had multiple offers.

Okay.

So there's still out there, there's still buyers out there.

But it just needs to be, you know, done with with some thought.

Yeah, yeah.

So, Robert, you over the years, you know, and being on this program so many times, 11 times, when the pricing spike really started to go.

Yeah.

One of the things you were taught, you know, I remember you talking about this.

Hey, everybody, let's not panic.

There are several mortgage products out there that are kind of coming, coming into the forefront and starting to happen.

I've been hearing to that the, and it kind of gives me that, moment.

Think of the 2008 that variable rates are coming back, because of some of the volatility and head right headline risk, 40 year, the 40 year product.

Are you seeing any of those products?

Do any of those make sense or should we just keep it as it is?

What's your take on kind of that from a big picture perspective?

Well, just a PR commercial for a second.

That's why you always hire a mortgage professional, because you want somebody to go through a pre-approval process and make sure that you can qualify for a home.

Also, I think the numbers 28% of homes in America were repriced downward.

And would that availability gives you the availability to reprice and put in concessions to do buy downs on the homes.

So as a mortgage professional, what you try to do is you try to work with your agents to try and get a concession to do a pre worked out by down.

So you can do it 3% lower, 2% lower, 1% lower over a three year period to get them in the House.

And as their income grows over three years, their payments will go up.

But they'll get in the home today.

The 40 year mortgage is not getting as much traction as you think.

Just you have asked before about the 50 year, right now it's all about getting pre-qualified, setting up the customer for success, and, getting them in the right home.

Yeah.

And I think the perspective is so important to, you know, I talked to my kids who are in their mid 30s and they think, oh my gosh, you know, interest rates are outrageous.

And I'm like, dude, my first loan for my first house in California was 19%.

Okay.

So let's all calm down.

Sure.

And so perspective.

Yeah.

What's your thought on that with young people particularly.

Well I have a I have three kids and my, my oldest daughter, who's 33, who fought me four years ago to buy the house and put all up for $224,000, the cracker box, which you can sell for probably 515, 520 and now can use that equity to buy up the house that has acreage they really want.

She's not laughing at it anymore.

So I would say to the younger generation, your first entry way into wealth is buying home because, real estate is the one transaction that opens the door to wealth for you.

The equity you gain every day is the future downpayment on your home.

It's your family's expansion.

I will just say that over that.

I believe the statistic is over a ten year period.

Any purchase price you've ever bought at has the home has always been worth more within that ten year period.

If you bought a home in 2020, you know it's worth 150, depending on what level in America more than what you paid in equities.

Covid spike.

That's right, that we have the highest level of equity in the history of real estate in America today.

We have the highest debt in America today.

So people, number one, need to get the equity so they can take care of their debt problems.

And number two, they need to build their equity for future for wealth.

Know good.

Shane, when I go back to you and we mentioned this in the Is it True segment, I was talking about pocket sales to eat and you can all jump in on this is what is your insight about that.

They're going to be actually become illegal in June.

Which to me just seems I don't know.

I think a person should be able to handle and manage and sell or buy their property as they see fit.

It is their property.

Although we're going to have a big debate about what property is when it comes to income tax.

That's another that's another show.

But talk to me a little bit about that.

Is is it a phenomenon?

Is it important?

Is it not important?

How are Realtors addressing that?

How big of a deal is it?

I want to answer this carefully because we did just go through some legislation around this.

And, you know, I've personally never had a seller tell me, please put my house in front of the least amount of people as possible, right?

Like that's, you know, there's there's care involved in every every seller is is different.

Every opportunity is different.

But I do I'm not seeing a ton of that in my market.

I'm in Seattle, but I do really think that it's important to maximize your time on market with the consumer and to get the best possible outcome from your seller.

What I hear you saying is that it can be done, and sometimes it happens, but it's typically not the best choice for your average guy, right?

Yeah.

Your average sellers, they're not they're not saying that.

And I've heard all different kinds of stories.

I mean, I'm president of Seattle.

King County Rollers have lots and lots of stories.

Yes.

And there's there's a way to do it that protects your seller.

And you can meet your sellers where they're at.

But I, again, I've never had someone say, please get it in front of the least amount of people as you can.

Another one of the hot topics out there too.

And Jenna, you gestured at this briefly when you said, when you're getting your house ready to sell, you know, take care of the small stuff that you know is going to come up.

That gets me to inspections.

We went through a period of time in this market, as you well know, where.

Inspection, inspection?

No.

You just buy that sucker.

Who cares?

Because it could be ready to burn down, but we're going to buy it and fix it later.

Then we kind of went through a thing where that's changed a little bit.

Where where are we now with inspections?

So I keep hearing about pre inspections that how does that work and what do you suggest.

Yeah.

So I mean that is one nice thing about more inventory and buyers.

You know having more choices is most houses do get inspections now.

And most buyers have the opportunity to ask for repairs, which is awesome because back, you know, when there was multiple offers, people were just buying houses as is.

They were buying them blindly, which can lead to a lot of, you know, costly repairs later on down the road.

So I do definitely recommend an inspection.

As far as pre inspection goes.

You know, it definitely is up to the seller and the and the agent, our Washington realtor attorney, her recommendation is to not do pre inspections.

It does put a lot of liability on the seller.

Obviously all inspectors.

It is you know it's it's their opinion.

Something that's a good point though is that if you as the seller do the inspection and you think about that, that means you own it, you own it.

And if there's something that comes up, well, hey, that was they did the inspection.

It's on them.

Well, and also if you as the seller do the inspection, you now have to disclose every single thing on that inspection.

And an inspector, I mean some of it is their opinion.

It does it they're not necessarily a licensed contractor.

So if they think the roof only has five years, but a roofing contractor says it has 12, you have to go with what that inspection says.

And now you have to disclose that this inspector said that the roof has X amount of years.

And so that can put some liability on the seller.

Because everything has to be disclosed if you do that.

Pretty interesting that free inspection.

Robert, I see you shaking your head over here.

I know that in the mortgage industry you're not doing inspections or ordering them, but your deals and the and as you talked about setting people up for success hinges on that.

That has to work.

It has to come through.

It has to be true.

And those kinds of things talk a little bit about, do you see this at all coming up?

Is it an element of fall through or what's your experience on that?

Well, first of all, I'll say that we haven't talked about this today when you talked about the marketplace.

What pocket are you talking about?

I would say that if I have 220 loan officers that are out on the street, I have 220 different lenses, 220 different perceptions.

That's our market.

I can have an office in downtown Seattle where there are communities and a multiple offer situation.

The demographics of the borrowers are coming out of the woodwork every time a listing comes on and they fight for the listing, I can show you areas that are sitting and there's stale inventory and it's not moving.

So the inspection kind of goes with that, right?

That if you're in a marketplace that's hotter, the inspection is not.

People are going to waive that for first right to win the offer.

That's right.

Even in this marketplace, if it's a if it's inventory that's sitting, etc., they will definitely want the inspection.

We have seen an uptick though with the sellers putting the inspection in.

And it is dangerous for two reasons.

One is now the seller's liable because they have to document it within the sale.

But number two is if you're a buyer, are you going to follow the inspection of a report that was paid for by the seller?

When you want your own opinion at that point and your own, backed, professional to protect you versus the seller.

So I we're seeing everything in the marketplace today.

I can just tell you that it just depends where the property is, what the purchase price is, what's the demographic in the marketplace?

Robert makes a good point.

One of the difficulties with doing this show is I'm trying to talk about real estate in all of Western Washington, because that's our audience.

And I'm just trying to give people a sense.

But, you know, real estate is really I wouldn't, you know, it's street by street, really not at least, neighborhood by neighborhood or zip code by zip code.

So, Cheyenne, what, what are you are are you experiencing that, like.

Like.

Oh, man, this one's going to sit for a while.

This is going to be my 90 days on the market.

Game show winner.

And this one I can sell tomorrow so I can spend some time marketing this one.

What's what's going on out there?

How are you approaching it?

Well, you're right when you say street by street and each area is different.

It's a really a tale of two markets.

Right.

And with the pre inspections and, and those people are doing those because they're expecting things to move very very quickly.

Right.

Those are in some of the areas that there's more density.

And check all the boxes for all the people.

Right.

Like were there I mean I still have buyers that I showed 40 homes, 40 to 40 times opening that you were in that commission.

I did, I did, and they were lovely.

And every week I thought, oh God, please just hang on.

We wrote five offers, you know, but they had an opportunity to use the seller procured inspection.

But each time it was, navigating what that might look like, right, like, and going through it line by line.

Because an inspector inspectors as a generalist.

Yeah.

On the other side of it, I've had sellers that are, you know, a seller who was 105 when she passed.

The kids weren't going to do an inspection.

They were getting the house ready to go.

And people were like, mad at me.

They're like, where's the seller inspection?

I'm like, how about you do one?

Yeah.

Did you remember that?

That's part of our.

So we do like the expectation thing.

I think that's it's a also we're salespeople but we're we're really we're going to set this expectation for you.

Yeah.

Generalizations are tough.

Last 50s now 45.

Time for shameless promotions.

Cheyenne, how can people find you and get involved if they want to learn more about King County?

Oh, triangle E-comm is my is my website where you can find all the information for what I do to keep the lights on in my house.

And then in addition, anything that you need to know about Seattle King County Realtors is on there as well.

N.W.

Realtor.com and Jenna, Jenna mason.com, at a gateway real estate.

And then obviously, tap car.com is who, I'm the president of as well.

So to come up here sounds good.

And Robert, Robert Livingston evergreen home loans.

We've been in Washington since 1987 covering 42 states that are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Chevy, my direct seller service are here to provide for the dream of homeownership.

All right, guys, thanks so much.

Great conversation as always.

It's interesting every year and it's, interesting this year because things are changing a little bit.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Thank you, thank you.

All right.

That Will western Washington ever become affordable?

I think there's a good chance that it might get there for a while.

If enough people start running for the exits looking for greener economic pastures and better weather.

The bottom line like everything else, conditions swing back and forth on a pendulum.

But until voters self-correct to fix this state's growing budget problems, hostile business climate and failing public education system, you might just get the deal on a home you've been hoping for.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can find this program on the web@kbtc.org, streaming through the PBS app, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of northwest.

Now I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

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