{"id":7399,"date":"2025-09-07T05:29:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T05:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/7399\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T05:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T05:29:06","slug":"washington-state-home-sales-slow-with-stable-prices-in-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/7399\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington state home sales slow with stable prices in August"},"content":{"rendered":"

Median home price flat at $650K; listings rose 31% from last year but buyer demand stayed sluggish despite easing mortgage rates.<\/p>\n

SEATTLE \u2014 Home prices across Washington state held steady in August while sales slowed, underscoring a housing market still grappling with weak buyer demand, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.<\/p>\n

The median sales price for residential homes and condominiums last month was $650,000, unchanged from July and less than 1% higher than August 2024.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Ferguson warns Trump tariffs could cost Washington 32,000 jobs, billions in revenue<\/a><\/p>\n

Active listings dipped 2.7% from July but surged 30.8% year-over-year, topping 20,000 homes compared to about 15,000 a year earlier. Despite the increased supply, sales slid. Closed transactions fell 7.7% from July and 5.7% from last year, led by slower activity in King and Snohomish counties.<\/p>\n

Demand remains stagnant, analysts noted, pointing to still-elevated borrowing costs.<\/p>\n

Mortgage rates inched down in August, with 30-year fixed loans dropping from 6.72% at the end of July to 6.56% by month\u2019s end. \u201cPressure on the Federal Reserve to lower its overnight federal funds rate is expected to result in cuts later this year,\u201d said Steven Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington. \u201cBut it\u2019s unclear whether such cuts will significantly affect long-term mortgage rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fed is widely expected to reduce its benchmark short-term rate later this month after Chair Jerome Powell signaled possible moves to offset slowing job growth. A weaker labor market report in July, with steep downward revisions to prior months, added urgency to the shift.<\/p>\n

The housing market has been sluggish since 2022, when mortgage rates began rising from historic lows. Sales remain soft in 2025 as rates hover above 6.5%, and most economists expect them to stay in the mid-6% range through year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press’ Alex Veiga contributed information for this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Median home price flat at $650K; listings rose 31% from last year but buyer demand stayed sluggish despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,220,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-7399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-markets","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}