Across the nation we keep hearing details about how the real estate market is cooling and homes are not selling. In the Seattle metro area we’ve been fortunate to have a fairly strong real estate market throughout many of the nation’s slowdowns. It looks like Seattle is now seeing a small increase in the inventory of homes available with a rise of 5.7% from July 2006 to July 2007. While this shows the biggest increase in supply in quite awhile, Seattle has been experiencing a huge shortage of homes available for the past few years resulting in multiple offers and escalating home prices way above much of the nation.

Seattle’s increase in inventory is a welcome situation to many homebuyers who have written 5, 6 or 7 offers trying to get a home. While in my opinion of working in the market, it is not completely slowing down but it is offering buyers more choices which means that seller’s will have to be a little more savvy when it comes to pricing and the upping the perceived value of their homes if they want them to sell quickly.

While Seattle has a long way to go before the market is “cooled” off it is a market that you have to watch very closely for micro trends. Some neighborhoods are selling faster then others and there are still multiple offers happening around the city just as there are overpriced properties that have been on the market for more then a few months.