Everyone wants to know the same thing right now: "Nate, is the market up or down?" Honest answer? It depends entirely on who you are.

I've lived in Clyde Hill for 22 years. I walk these streets. I know which cul-de-sacs hold value in any market and which ones don't. And right now, what I'm seeing on the ground doesn't match what the headlines are saying — because the headlines are trying to tell one story about a market that is actually telling two.

I just finished analyzing every sold transaction in Area 520 — Bellevue, Clyde Hill, Medina, Yarrow Point, Hunts Point, and Evergreen Point — comparing January through May 2025 versus the same window in 2026. The numbers are striking. But it's what's behind the numbers that matters.

The Numbers First

Prices are up 23%. Volume is down 33%. Homes are sitting twice as long. And the average home that's actually selling is 700 square feet larger than last year. That last data point is the one nobody's talking about — because it's the key to understanding everything else.

Why Are Larger Homes Selling?

The simple answer: because wealthy buyers are the ones buying. But that deserves more unpacking than it usually gets.

Sotheby's International Realty's 2026 Luxury Outlook dropped one finding that stopped me cold: roughly $6 trillion in inherited wealth was transferred globally in 2025 alone — 10% of global GDP — creating a new wave of well-capitalized buyers moving quickly, often paying cash, and skewing younger than any luxury buyer cohort in history. That's not a blip. That's a structural shift in who has buying power.

Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi put it plainly: wealthy buyers are simply less exposed to macroeconomic factors. Mortgage rates at 6.3% are someone else's problem when you're deploying equity, RSU liquidity, or inherited capital.

On the Eastside, that buyer profile is reinforced by something unique to our market. OpenAI opened its Bellevue office in March — 1,400 seats at City Center Plaza. Amazon, Microsoft, Snowflake, Databricks, TikTok, Uber. Even through the layoff headlines, median earnings for King County tech workers hit $163,600 annually — far above any other employment category in the region. The people who kept their jobs came out of the past two years with significant equity, significant RSU value, and a clear appetite to upgrade.

These are your move-up buyers. They owned a home worth $2.5M in 2021. It's worth $3.8M now. They're rolling that equity into something larger, better-located, and built for how they actually live — multigenerational layouts, guesthouses, privacy, space. That's why average square footage sold jumped 21%. That's why the $6M–$10M tier is active while parts of the market below it are sitting.

Where the Micro-Markets Are Telling Different Stories

This is where hyperlocal knowledge matters — because Area 520 isn't one market. It's six or seven markets wearing the same zip code.

The Other Half of the K

Now for the story that doesn't make people feel good.

The buyer who needs a mortgage to purchase in this market is getting crushed. Not by one thing — by everything simultaneously. Prices are up 23%. Rates are still above 6%. The price-to-income ratio nationally has climbed from 4.3x in 2003 to nearly 6x today. According to NAR's economists, middle-income buyers can currently afford just 21% of available homes — a stat that should make everyone uncomfortable.

And here's the brutal irony: the sellers who would otherwise free up inventory — the ones sitting in 3-bedroom ramblers in West Bellevue or Enatai — have no economic incentive to move. They locked in a 2.75% mortgage in 2021. Trading that for a 6.3% rate to move into something bigger would cost them $4,000–$6,000 more per month. So they stay. Supply stays locked. Prices stay elevated. The aspirational buyer stays on the sidelines.

This is what economists are calling the K-shaped housing market. The top of the K is thriving. The bottom of the K is stalled. And unlike most divergences, this one doesn't appear to be self-correcting anytime soon.

What This Means If You're Thinking About Selling

• 1
  The over-asking frenzy is over — but well-priced homes still win. We went from 100.1% SP/LP in 2025 to 97.5% in 2026. That sounds small. On a $5M home, that's $125,000 left on the table if you misprice and sit. Day one pricing discipline has never mattered more.
• 2
  Know your buyer. The buyer for a $4M–$8M Clyde Hill, Medina, or Enatai home in 2026 is almost certainly equity-rich, probably tech-adjacent, possibly paying cash or putting 40%+ down. They are sophisticated. They have seen a lot of houses. They will not overpay for something that needs work or justification.
• 3
  Days on market is now a negotiation weapon — against you. In 2025, the average listing sold in 26 days. In 2026, it's 56. The longer a home sits, the more buyers assume something is wrong — even when nothing is. First impressions are permanent in this market.
• 4
  Off-market is still happening — just less. 25 off-market transactions in 2025 (22% of all deals). In 2026, that fell to 12 (16%). The private network still matters. Talking to someone with deep buyer relationships before you list publicly is still worth exploring.

What This Means If You're Thinking About Buying

If you're equity-rich

This is your moment. Volume is thin, which means less competition for the best homes than you'd expect given the price appreciation. Patient, selective buyers in the $4M–$10M range are finding real opportunity — particularly in properties that have sat 45+ days and where motivated sellers are finally willing to have a real conversation. Downtown Bellevue condos specifically are worth a close look — the negotiating environment there is the most favorable it's been in three years.

If you're rate-dependent

Be strategic. The homes that will hold value in a market like this are the ones with structural scarcity — specific streets, specific school districts, specific lot characteristics that no amount of new construction can replicate. In the micro-markets I specialize in, you're not buying real estate. You're buying a position in a geography with permanent supply constraints.

The Bottom Line

The Eastside luxury market in 2026 isn't up or down. It's bifurcated.

If you have equity and optionality, this market is working in your favor. Prices are higher, competition at the top end is thinner than the headlines suggest, and the structural case for owning in Clyde Hill, Medina, Enatai, or The Points is stronger than ever — driven by employer expansion, infrastructure investment, and permanent land scarcity.

If you're fighting mortgage rates and trying to stretch into this market without a significant equity position, it is genuinely hard. And I won't pretend otherwise.

Knowing which half of the K you're in — and having a strategy calibrated to that reality — is the whole game right now.