Seattle homebuilding is off the floor — and 40% below the boom

housing
construction
Builders were authorized to start 19,263 homes in the Seattle metro over the past 12 months — up 26% from last summer’s trough, but still down 40% from the 2022 peak.
Published

July 7, 2026

Housing units authorized by building permits in the Seattle metro, trailing 12-month total, 1990 to 2026. The line swings in big cycles: about 33,000 at the start of 1990, collapsing below 16,000 in the early-90s downturn, climbing through two more cycles to peaks near 28,000, crashing to 7,138 in 2009, then a long climb to a 31,860 peak in mid-2022, a steep slide to about 15,300 in mid-2025, and a hook upward to 19,263 in May 2026. Gray bands mark Washington economic downturns.

Building permits are the housing market’s leading indicator — nothing gets built that isn’t permitted first, so this series moves a year or more ahead of completions, move-ins, and rents. Over the 12 months through May, builders were authorized to start 19,263 homes in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro — up 26% from 15,279 in the same window a year earlier, and up from a trough of 15,257 last July.

That’s a real turn, and the monthly detail says it’s gathering pace: April and May 2026 each cleared 2,200 units, the strongest back-to-back pair since 2022. But keep the level in perspective. The trailing-12-month pace peaked at 31,860 in June 2022, so today’s rate is still 40% below the boom — and below every cyclical peak on the chart, including the one the series opens with in 1990. The 2023–25 slide wasn’t a 2009-style collapse (the floor then was 7,138), but it was the region quietly agreeing to build a third fewer homes while population kept growing.

Two reading notes. The monthly series is not seasonally adjusted and lumpy — a single large apartment project permits hundreds of units in one month — which is why this chart shows a rolling 12-month total rather than monthly bars; that’s also the honest way to read a metro-level permit series. And a permit is permission, not a foundation: in soft markets some permitted units are never started, so this line marks the ceiling on what shows up as new supply in the for-sale market a year or two out.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, New Private Housing Units Authorized, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue WA MSA, not seasonally adjusted, via FRED series SEAT653BPPRIV. Total units in permitted structures, single-family plus multifamily. New months post about three weeks after month-end; this chart refreshes on the next daily build.