February 17, 2026 · Market Analysis

The Market Pulse: A Pivotal Moment

January didn’t exactly burst out of the gate. If 2026 was supposed to be the Year of the Fire Horse, the Seattle market started more like a trot. Momentum is building, it just hasn’t left the gate yet.

Inventory has expanded to levels not seen in recent years, prices have stabilized, mortgage rates are trending lower, and buyer demand remains active — though far more selective than in prior cycles. The market is functioning, but it is no longer forgiving. Strategy now matters more than speed.

Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates have eased into the low-6% range, currently 6.09% per Freddie Mac (February 12, 2026). That restores roughly 8–10% in purchasing power compared to mid-2025.

Yet many buyers remain hesitant. Job market uncertainty — headlined by slowdowns and cuts at major employers like Amazon and Meta in 2025 — has prompted a more deliberate approach. On Sunday we received the BLS’s bombshell jobs revision: U.S. employment growth for 2025 was slashed by a record 1,029,000 jobs. This is the largest annual downward adjustment in over 20 years.

Introducing: The Market Pulse

Closed data tells you where the market was. Active and Pending data tells you where it’s going. After 17 years in this business, you learn to develop a sort of 6th sense. The tone of a buyer. The cadence of showings. The urgency in negotiations.

We built The Market Pulse to quantify that intuition — a real-time, back-tested index measuring active and pending activity, velocity metrics, all standardized for a more accurate snapshot and evaluation of the momentum in the market, past, current, and future. This tool is especially valuable for our sellers and builders as it will allow you to make informed decisions at the leading edge of potential market shifts allowing you to stay ahead rather than chasing from behind.

Back testing the data on last year, the Pulse reading was flashing caution by March, and confirmed in April a momentum level slowdown comparable only to 2022’s rate shock and the early 2020 COVID slowdown.

In January 2026, the Pulse reading registered a -4.07%, following December’s -2.98%. That reflects absorption lag from 2025’s inventory expansion with average cumulative days on market for sold homes stretching to 71 — the longest we’ve seen in over a decade.

Looking forward, February pending projections are rebounding with a projected Pulse reading of 3.87%, still below prior years but momentum is slowly improving.