Every few weeks, another headline declares Seattle-area real estate a "buyer's market" or warns that sellers still have the upper hand. Both can't be right at once — and honestly, neither is fully right, because the headline usually skips the one number that would actually answer the question.
That number is months of supply, and it's not complicated once you know how to read it. Here's where King County actually stands right now, and what that means if you're buying or selling on the Eastside this fall.
Months of supply measures how long it would take to sell every home currently on the market at the current pace of sales, if not a single new listing came on. It's calculated by dividing active listings by the average number of homes sold per month. The math is simple; the interpretation is where most headlines go wrong.
Real estate economists generally use the same three bands to read that number: 0 to 3 months signals a seller's market, where demand is outrunning supply and homes move fast with multiple offers. 4 to 6 months is a balanced market, where buyers and sellers have roughly equal leverage. Above 6 months tips toward a buyer's market, where sellers compete harder for fewer offers and price cuts become more common.
As of the most recent NWMLS-sourced market data this month, King County's months of supply is sitting at 3.9 — up from 3.8 just a week earlier. Active listings are running close to 7,900, median days on market is holding at 21, and the median sold price is around $845,000, down roughly 3 to 4% from a year ago.
For context, that 3.9 puts King County closer to balanced than Snohomish County (3.1 months) or Pierce County (3.2 months) — the two other large Puget Sound counties reporting this month. Despite carrying the highest median price of the three, King County is currently the one giving buyers the most room to breathe.
By the strict thresholds, 3.9 months still falls on the seller's-market side of the line. This isn't the six-plus-month inventory glut that defines a true buyer's market, and multiple-offer situations on well-priced, well-located homes haven't disappeared. If you're picturing 2008-style leverage, that's not what these numbers show.
What they do show is a market that has moved meaningfully toward balance compared to the ultra-tight conditions of recent years, when King County routinely sat under 2 months of supply. Buyers today have more listings to choose from, more time to make a decision, and a 99% median sale-to-list ratio that tells you sellers are no longer routinely fielding offers well above asking. That's real, usable leverage — it's just not the same thing as a full-blown buyer's market, and a headline that says otherwise oversells your position at the negotiating table.
Months of supply rarely tells the whole story on its own, which is exactly why it's worth checking against the other figures in the same report. A 21-day median days-on-market keeps this from looking like a stalled market — homes priced correctly are still moving in about three weeks. A 99% sale-to-list ratio means most sellers are landing very close to their asking price, not slashing it to attract interest. And a year-over-year price decline in the low single digits reads less like a correction and more like a market cooling off a torrid multi-year run.
Put together, those numbers describe a market in transition rather than one that has flipped. That's a very different conversation than "it's a buyer's market now," and it's the conversation worth having before you set a strategy.
3.9 months is a King County average, and averages flatten real differences between neighborhoods, price points, and property types. A townhome in one Eastside micro-market can be moving in days with multiple offers while a dated single-family home two ZIP codes over sits for months. The county number is the right starting point for understanding direction and momentum — it's the wrong number to price a specific listing or write a specific offer against.
If you're selling, a 3.9-months market rewards realistic, comp-driven pricing over testing the market high and chasing it down later — that strategy costs you the 21-day window when buyer interest is freshest. If you're buying, this is a market where you can afford to ask for inspection contingencies and take a few days to think, rather than waiving everything to compete, but it's not one where lowball offers on desirable homes are landing.
Either way, the county figure is a compass, not a map. If you'd like the real numbers for your specific neighborhood or price range — current months of supply, comparable sales, and how your street is actually trending — reach out and I'll pull the current data together for you.