In pricey Seattle, $1M can buy just an ‘entry level’ single-family home

Mark Koks felt confident as he and his wife began house hunting in Seattle this year. With a budget exceeding $1 million, the couple were ready to land a home bigger and nicer than their Greenwood town home.  

But the cruel reality of the city’s home prices quickly sank in after touring several single-family houses in Greenwood, Phinney Ridge, Ballard and nearby neighborhoods this winter. 

“We have had to come to terms with the fact that the perfect home doesn’t exist within our price range,” Koks said. 

In Seattle, where homebuyers have long suffered with affordability, even a $1 million-plus budget no longer guarantees living in the city’s high-priced market. 

The median price for a single-family home in the city hit $1 million last month. That means half the home sales that month had a higher price tag, while the other half sold for less.  

But as home prices continued to rise, single-family homes priced at or under $1 million are in fewer pockets of the city and often draw fierce competition from buyers, real estate agents say.  

“It might be the entry level for some neighborhoods,” said David Palmer, a Seattle-based agent for Redfin. 

Ryan Palardy, a Seattle-based agent, said $1 million will buy “a pretty reasonable town house in a pretty decent location.” As for single-family homes, $1 million buys a house “on the fringes of the city” or a small fixer-upper in a desirable neighborhood. He also said the $1 million traditional home is usually 30 to 70 years old, rarely updated and often under 2,000 square feet.  

“Not bad houses per se,” Palardy said, “but definitely not something people would be fighting for if they could afford something more.” 

Koks, who is Palardy’s client, said the homes priced around $1 million that they’ve walked through almost always had “flaws,” such as odd floor plans or they are far outside the area where they want to live.  

Koks is a regional sales manager who works remotely for a brewery, and his wife works downtown. The couple, both 30, own a three-bedroom town house in the north-central neighborhood of Greenwood but are planning for when they have children and need more room.  

They would like to stay in Greenwood or nearby, like Phinney Ridge and Ballard. His wife takes public transit to an office downtown. Neither want to leave the city for the suburbs.  

“We want to live within walking distance from amenities that we enjoy,” Koks said. “We live in the city for a reason.” 

Despite their setbacks, Koks said they remain selective, hoping they will eventually find their dream house on a budget not to exceed $1.2 million.  

“Ultimately, the plan is to buy a single-family home and what that might look like is a good question.”   

The shrinking $1 million home  

The size of Seattle-area homes that can be purchased for a million has been getting smaller, according to Zillow.  

As of January, the typical Seattle-area home worth $1 million was 2,120 square feet, which has shrunk by 410 square feet over the past five years, Zillow said. The national average for a $1 million home is 2,388 square feet. Since 2020, Seattle-area homes at $1 million have lost one bedroom and a quarter of a bathroom, Zillow estimates. 

Among major metros, only in the pricey California cities of San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego will $1 million dollars buy less house, Zillow said. 

This “shrinkflation” is primarily a result of escalating home prices, which have been driven up by strong buyer demand for a scanty numbers of homes, said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist with Zillow. This is particularly true of traditional, single-family homes within city limits.