Get email alerts on the Housing topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Council: Building permits show modest pickup while Seattle prices slip
Summary
The council reported multifamily permits have risen slightly after years of decline, prompting a small upward revision to permit forecasts, while Seattle-area housing prices were down about 2.5% year-over-year in March.
Dave said building permits — a leading indicator for construction — have been down for four years but that the first months of 2026 show signs of a pickup, particularly in multifamily permits; the council revised its permits forecast up slightly. "We're actually up, year on year through March," he said of permits.
By contrast, Dave said Seattle-area house prices are contracting year-over-year (about -2.5% in March), driven in part by homeowners holding low mortgage rates and current mortgage rates near 6.5% that reduce listing incentives. The council said permits may mark a bottom in 2026 and expects growth to resume in 2027.
AI generated
The text on this page is AI generated. Summaries, highlights, analysis, and video transcripts are all produced from the original source material.
AI can make mistakes, so if you spot one, and we will fix it for everyone.
Note: the source content is unaltered by us. Any content source we link to, be it a video, an audio recording, or a document, is presented exactly as its publisher released it. That publisher is usually a government body, sometimes an individual official or another organisation.
