Prices, inventory, and demand — distilled every month into one clear verdict: buyer’s market or seller’s. The investor’s read, before you make an offer.
Yes, if you negotiate. Buyers have the upper hand in Tacoma right now.
You have the upper hand in Tacoma. Most homes for sale still have no buyer. Many sellers have already dropped their price once. There are more homes for sale than at any time in ten years. Sellers are competing for you. Use it.
Only 57 out of every 100 homes for sale have found a buyer. The other 43 are still waiting. Your offer may be the only one on the table. About 1 in 5 sellers has already dropped their price. Each one has learned their first price was too high. Start below their new price, not their old one.
A typical Tacoma home takes 42 days to find a buyer. Half of them take even longer. That is 7% slower than a year ago. Those sellers are paying to own a house they want to sell. Search for homes listed 60+ days ago. There are 729 homes for sale in Tacoma. That is the most in ten years. It is 6 times the low of Jan 2022. Every one of them competes with the house you want.
Asking prices are at their highest point on record. You are buying at the top. Underwrite it that way. Prices stopped falling about a year ago. They are flat now. Waiting will not get you a cheaper house. It might still get you a more motivated seller. Tacoma prices have risen in 88 of the last 108 months. Drops here have been short and shallow. Buying in a slow month has rarely hurt a long hold.
The discount is already here. It is not getting bigger. Buy now while sellers are still weak. Waiting for a lower price stopped working a year ago.
Yes, if you negotiate. Buyers have the upper hand in Tacoma right now. 0.57 out of every 100 homes for sale have a buyer, 20% of sellers have cut their price, and a typical home takes 42 days to sell.
Asking prices are at their highest point on record. You are buying at the top. Underwrite it that way. Prices stopped falling about a year ago. They are flat now. Waiting will not get you a cheaper house. It might still get you a more motivated seller.
+0.2%/yr. 1 year: -3.1% · 5 years: +0.2% · ten years: +7.1%. Do not use the ten-year rate. Most of that growth landed in the 2020 and 2021 boom. The five-year rate is what Tacoma does without one. Underwrite closer to +0.2%. Measure growth per square foot. Tacoma median list price grew 6.3% a year, but price per square foot grew 7.1%. The gap is smaller homes, not weaker growth. The house you buy will not shrink. The one-year rate is a timing signal. It is not an underwriting input.
A typical Tacoma home takes 42 days to find a buyer. Half of them take even longer. That is 7% slower than a year ago. Those sellers are paying to own a house they want to sell. Search for homes listed 60+ days ago.
98402. Only 44 out of 100 homes there have a buyer, 31% have cut their price, and a typical home takes 67 days to sell.
Where it isn't: 98466 ranks #5,289 in the country for buyer demand. Expect the least room to negotiate there.
ZIP 98405 is on both lists. That is rare. It is the one place in Tacoma where leverage and growth overlap.
| ZIP | $/sqft, 2 yrs | $/sqft now | Buyers per home | For sale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 98408 | +5.9% | $325 | 0.84 | 42 |
| 98445 | +3.2% | $291 | 0.99 | 79 |
| 98422 | +0.1% | $343 | 0.26 | 73 |
| 98444 | -0.2% | $324 | 0.61 | 55 |
| 98405 | -0.6% | $287 | 0.49 | 50 |
Computed from each ZIP's own ten-year history. ZIPs with fewer than 10 homes for sale are excluded: a median across a handful of listings is noise, not a signal.
Closest matches on asking price, price per square foot, days to sell, buyer demand, and price cuts.
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