Seattle's resilient housing market has managed to weather the housing crisis like few other cities in the nation.

But a little rain could be about to fall.

The city's housing market is beginning to show the same mixed-market conditions that appeared elsewhere before prices tumbled.

During 2007, well after home prices started slipping in many major metropolitan areas, Seattle's median price on single-family homes was up 7 percent. Condo prices rose nearly 11 percent in 2007, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

But by late last year, market strain was slowing sales, swelling inventories and depressing prices in the Puget Sound town.

This year in May, condo prices were up only 4 percent, compared to a year earlier. Single family home prices were down 2 percent, according the MLS.

Seattle real estate agents who report to RealtyTimes' Market Conditions say it's almost too close to call, but the market looks more and more like a buyer's market.

They also say prices are nearly flat.

Even after price declines, Seattle's median single family home price is nearly a half million dollars and, in today's inflationary economy, that gives edgy buyers sticker-shock.

Pending sales in May were down nearly 40 percent, compared with a year earlier for both houses and condos, according to the MLS.

With sales down, Seattle's inventory of homes has jumped by 40 to 50 percent, says ZipRealty CEO Pat Lashinsky.

But Lashinsky says that could be good news. Motivated sellers will lower prices further and give more buyers an opportunity to buy.

Published: June 30, 2008

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.