In mid-May, a couple in north Juanita listed their 1,820-square-foot tri-level for just over $1 million. That was about $200,000 below its estimated value. They had replaced the carpet, repainted the interior and done some exterior work. According to The Seattle Times, the house drew two bids and sold in 17 days for $22,000 over asking.
The same article followed a 1,681-square-foot condo two blocks from the Kirkland waterfront. It came on this spring at an expected $1.2 million and drew no interest. The owners pulled it, repainted, replaced the carpets and made two price cuts. It sold in early September for $1.02 million, about $150,000 under the May list price.
Both homes sold into the same "buyer's market," but they had very different outcomes. Most of that gap traces to the northern part of the Kirkland market, where buyers never left and more sellers arrived to compete for them.
Count the Buyers First, Then the Sellers
The Northwest Multiple Listing Service reports King County in map areas that don't follow city limits. Kirkland is split mainly between area 560, labeled "Kirkland/Bridle Trails," and area 600, labeled "Juanita/Woodinville." Area 600 reaches past Kirkland into Woodinville, so treat it as a read on the north end rather than a census of Juanita alone.
Across four months of NWMLS residential data, demand in that northern area moved very little. Supply moved a lot.
| Area 600, residential, 2026 vs. 2025 | New listings | Pending sales | Total active | Months of inventory, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June | 240 vs. 207 | 116 vs. 144 | 384 vs. 301 | 3.28 |
| July | 249 vs. 158 | 117 vs. 118 | 421 vs. 302 | 3.79 |
| August | 214 vs. 141 | 120 vs. 112 | 425 vs. 285 | 4.29 |
| September | 271 vs. 189 | 117 vs. 122 | 467 vs. 313 | 5.02 |
From July through September 2026, area 600 recorded 354 pending sales, compared with 352 in the same three months of 2025. Over the same stretch, sellers brought 734 new listings to market, up from 488. That is roughly 50% more homes competing for the same number of buyers. June was the one month when pending sales fell noticeably. From midsummer on, buyers went under contract at the same pace as a year earlier.
That is why inventory climbed from 3.28 months in June to 5.02 months in September. It is also why the area's residential median slipped only modestly, to $1,150,000 in September 2026, down 6.11% from a year earlier. Buyers still showed up. Each one simply had more homes to choose from.
A Steady Buyer Pool Rewards the Listing That Undercuts the Crowd
When the number of buyers holds steady and the number of listings jumps, those buyers spread across more homes, and a seller's list price competes with the neighbors' listings more than with last year's sales. The north Juanita tri-level shows how that plays out. It came on well below its estimated value, arrived freshly refurbished, and drew competing bids that pushed the price back above asking.
Buyers in the same part of town are still competing for the right house. The same Seattle Times piece reported on buyers who bought a 1,320-square-foot Finn Hill home for $1.1 million, beating one other bidder and paying $62,000 over asking.
Homes priced with the crowd have a harder time. The Seattle Times reported that sellers across Kirkland are making price cuts that often exceed $100,000, according to agents. It also reported that the city's single-family median was $1.27 million in August 2026, the lowest since January 2024, after hovering around $1.5 million for most of the year. The waterfront condo had the same location advantage in May that it had in September. It sold once its price fell into the range where buyers were already shopping.
The Kirkland/Bridle Trails Side Has a Different Problem
Area 560 looks different because there, demand is what moved. From July through September 2026, pending sales totaled 170, compared with 185 a year earlier, a drop of about 8%. New listings rose about 14%, from 308 to 350. Area 560 actually had fewer extra sellers than the north. What it lost was buyers.
Its median prices swing so widely that a single month says little. The residential median for area 560 went from:
- $2,600,000 in June 2026, up 22.93% year over year, on 65 closed sales
- $1,995,000 in July, down 3.39%, on 55 closed sales
- $1,560,000 in August, down 14.05%, on 47 closed sales
- $1,900,000 in September, down 17.39%, on 61 closed sales
A swing of more than a million dollars in four months, on fewer than 70 closings a month, reflects which homes happened to close, not what any one home lost. The steady signal is the pending count, which fell year over year in three of those four months. August was the exception, with 73 pending sales against 49. Area 560 ended September with 3.70 months of inventory, tighter than the north's 5.02. Fewer listings are sitting there, but fewer buyers are writing offers too.
The two halves of Kirkland reached the same headline by different routes. In the north, extra supply caught up with steady demand. On the Kirkland/Bridle Trails side, demand thinned out.
More Homes Are Coming to the North End
The extra listings in the north are unlikely to disappear soon. The City of Kirkland's major development projects report, revised June 30, 2026, lists these projects across Totem Lake, Juanita and Finn Hill.
- Kirkland CKC Townhomes, 121 residential units at 10801 and 10809 120th Ave NE in Totem Lake, under construction. Toll Brothers was the applicant when the city's design review board approved the project in February 2023.
- Senderos Townhomes, 60 units at 13220 NE 126th Place in Totem Lake, under construction, with the builder now marketing homes for sale.
- East Senderos Townhomes, 26 units at NE 126th Place and 135th Ave NE, in pre-permit review.
- Orcas Moon Cottages, 14 units at 420 20th Ave in Juanita, under construction.
- Juanita Townhomes, 12 units at 14237 73rd Ave NE in Finn Hill, under construction.
- 9049 NE Juanita Drive Condominiums, 12 units, in pre-permit review.
The city's report doesn't say whether most of these will be sold or rented, so they show what is being built, not how many homes will hit the resale market. The rules point the same way. Kirkland adopted its middle housing code amendments on June 17, 2025, allowing four units per lot in residential zones and six within a half-mile of a major transit stop. A city staff memo dated May 29, 2026 counts 663 middle-housing units permitted since March 2020, and approximately 95% of them are under 2,000 square feet. The Seattle Times described a Finn Hill block where one small older house was replaced by three two-story homes in 2024, and all three later sold for more than $2 million.
That means a north-end resale seller now competes with the neighbor down the street and also with new townhomes and cottages that buyers can tour on the same Saturday.
What This Means for an Offer or a List Price
The regional numbers show the same pattern on a larger scale. NWMLS reported on October 6, 2026 that September inventory across its service area rose 24.5% year over year while pending sales fell 15.1%, bringing inventory to 4.44 months, the highest since February 2014. The Eastside residential median for September 2026 was $1,425,000, down 9.52%.
Within Kirkland, the reason behind the soft market changes the practical advice:
- North-end buyers have plenty of choice, but other buyers are still looking at the same homes. A well-priced, move-in-ready home in Juanita or Finn Hill can still draw more than one offer. The leverage comes from homes that have already sat through a price cut.
- North-end sellers are pricing against a growing list of homes, including new construction. A list price based on what a neighbor got in 2025 lands among the 467 active listings NWMLS counted in area 600 in September.
- Kirkland/Bridle Trails buyers and sellers should use pending activity and closed comparables from their own streets rather than the area median, which can move by hundreds of thousands of dollars from one month to the next.
A Few Questions We Hear Often
Is the October data out yet? Not as of this week. The September 2026 NWMLS breakouts were released in early October, and October figures typically follow in early November.
Do NWMLS map areas match Kirkland's neighborhoods? No. Area 600 is labeled Juanita/Woodinville and includes territory outside Kirkland, and NWMLS doesn't publish a neighborhood-by-neighborhood crosswalk. Use the map areas to read direction and pace, and use closed sales near a specific home to set its value.
Does a higher months-of-inventory figure mean every home will sit? In area 600, buyers went under contract at about the same pace from July through September 2026 as they did a year earlier. That steady demand helps explain why the well-priced Juanita and Finn Hill sales described above drew competing bids.
If you're weighing a sale or a purchase in Kirkland this fall and want a pricing read built from street-level comparables rather than an area median, Macdonald Group can walk you through how your home compares with the active listings around it. Get in Touch.
