Seattle has been listed as tops in home-price growth in the country for seventh straight month. The local market has gotten so competitive that 90% of homes for sale ended up closed higher than the listed price. Seattle recorded 12.3% increase from 2016 in March compare to national average of 5.8%. There's simply not enough inventory in Seattle metropolitan area to calm a feeding frenzy. Seattle had the highest rate of bidding wards of any hot markets such as San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, Boston, Austin and Washington, D.C. The typical single-famiy house in the city sold for a record $722,000.

Home buyers may take up between 6 months to a year largely due to keep losing to the highest bidder. Spring time is when competition at its peak. To stand out some buyers have resorted to waiving contingencies, inspections, and submitting a bigger portion in nonrefundable cash sums. And because houses can go so quickly, buyers often need to pull the trigger and submit an offer on a home within hours of it hitting the market resulting in less due diligence. Some even submitted offers sight unseen with escalating clause. 

Most of the cases, sellers will set a deadline of reviewing all offers and will pick the highest one. This trend seems to have spread out to adjacent Seattle neighborhoods as well.