Seattle and Denver both have overheated housing markets. Seattle might be getting some relief.

“We might actually be starting to move very slowly back toward a more balanced market.”
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What happens when an area with a booming population, rising rents and a super competitive real estate market actually gets some more housing available?

July active listings in Washington are at their highest level since September 2015, reported the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, with more than 12,000 listings added in each of the previous three month.

"We might actually be starting to move very slowly back toward a more balanced market," OB Jacobi, president of Windermere Real Estate said in a press release for Northwest Multiple Listing Service, the agency that prepared the figures.

Local blog Seattle Bubble looked at King County:

"In July, for the first time since September 2014, inventory did not set a new record low for the respective month."

There, active listings went up 0.1 percent, year over year. Active listings in the Denver metro area were down 0.03 percent in the same period, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.

That may not sound like much, but July's numbers were heralded as a sign that prices continue to outstrip wages and need some sort of correction, and July is typically when inventory is supposed to peak.

It's not a perfect comparison since each covers a different amount of area, but what a difference .13 percent makes, eh?

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