Earlington vs Skyway: Two West Hill Markets Compared

Earlington vs Skyway comes up constantly because both sit on Renton’s west hill, both get called “the west hill” by people who have not looked closely, and both get confused for the other by buyers cross-shopping the area. They are not the same market, and the gap between them has moved twice in the last six weeks alone. The last published read had Skyway pulling decisively ahead of Earlington. The newest pull tells a different story.

The two neighborhoods also differ in a way that has nothing to do with price and everything to do with which government answers your call. Earlington sits inside Renton city limits. Skyway is unincorporated King County. That single fact touches services, taxes, and how each market behaves.

The Rache Team has spent more than 26 years guiding families toward wealth and homeownership on both sides of this hill. This comparison uses our own published snapshots for each neighborhood, a fresh pull of the underlying data, and the actual closings recorded on each side, so you can see where the two markets genuinely differ and where a headline is doing the talking.

Earlington vs Skyway: The Short Answer

If you want the conclusion first, here it is. Earlington vs Skyway is not a contest between a cheaper hill and a pricier one anymore, and it was not settled the way our own most recent published snapshots said it was. As of this pull, Earlington and Skyway are within about $50,000 of each other on median price, Skyway’s median is falling year over year while Earlington’s is essentially flat, and both now trade below Renton citywide on a per-square-foot basis.

The more durable difference between the two is not the price. It is the per-square-foot behavior, and the two hills fail in opposite ways. Earlington’s flat rate is wrong at the small end of the size range and nearly correct at the large end. Skyway’s flat rate is wrong at both ends. That distinction matters more than either median once you are pricing or offering on an actual house.

And underneath both is the jurisdiction line. Earlington is a City of Renton neighborhood with Renton police, Renton parks, and Renton property tax codes. Skyway-West Hill is unincorporated King County, receiving county services and carrying different, generally higher, tax codes on comparable ground. That distinction does not move with the market.

What the Published Numbers Say About Earlington vs Skyway

Start with what a buyer sees first. According to Redfin’s Earlington Hill market data, the median sale price is $650,000, up 0.8 percent year over year, for the three months ending March 2026, at $354 per square foot. Five homes sold in the reported window.

According to Redfin’s Bryn Mawr-Skyway market data, the median sale price is $602,000, down 5.9 percent year over year, for the three months ending July 2026, at $376 per square foot, up 10.9 percent. Forty-three homes sold in the reported window, unchanged from a year earlier.

Notice the two windows do not match. Earlington’s figure describes a period that ended five months before this pull. Skyway’s figure describes a period that ended about five weeks before it. That gap alone would distort a side-by-side comparison even if nothing else were different, and it is the same window-mismatch problem we have now documented on nearly every Renton-area neighborhood pair we have compared.

It is also worth naming what changed since our own most recent published reads. Our Skyway snapshot, pulled in early August, reported a median of $708,576. Our Earlington-vs-Skyway framing at that time, based on the two neighborhoods’ respective snapshots, had Skyway at $692,123, up 15.4 percent year over year, clearly ahead of Renton citywide. The newest pull shows Skyway’s reported median down to $602,000 and down 5.9 percent year over year. That is a roughly $90,000 swing in the reported figure inside about a month, with no comparable change in the neighborhood itself. The house stock did not change. The rolling three-month window simply moved, and it moved by more than most people would guess a stable market could shift.

Sample size explains part of it. Earlington’s 5-sale window is too thin to trust on its own, a problem we flagged in our Earlington home prices snapshot. Skyway’s 43-sale window is large enough to be more stable, which makes its $90,000 drop the more informative of the two moves. A big, well-populated number that still swings this far in five weeks is the clearest evidence yet that no single reported median on this hill should be treated as a fixed price.

Earlington vs Skyway on Real Recent Closings

Recorded sales do not get revised later, so here is what actually closed on each side.

Earlington, seven closings from June and July 2026:

• 217 NW 6th St. $720,000, 2,030 square feet, about $355 per square foot. 25 days, 4 percent over list.
• 423 Lind Ave SW. $650,500, 1,780 square feet, about $365 per square foot. 28 days, 3 percent over list.
• 98 Hardie Ave SW. $628,050, 1,660 square feet, about $378 per square foot. 27 days, 5 percent over list.
• 1100 SW 3rd Pl. $613,000, 1,520 square feet, about $403 per square foot. 40 days, 2 percent under list.
• 264 Taylor Ave NW. $440,000, 760 square feet, about $579 per square foot. 53 days, at list.
• 308 Taylor Ave NW. $440,000, 1,760 square feet, about $250 per square foot. 22 days, 10 percent over list.
• 833 SW Sunset Blvd Unit J-51. $318,500, 1,123 square feet, attached. 90 days, 2 percent under list.

Median across those seven: $613,000. Median days on market: 28.

Skyway, seven closings from late July 2026:

• 12828 78th Ave S. $600,000, 1,780 square feet, about $337 per square foot. 55 days, 4 percent under list.
• 7650 S 113th St. $590,000, square footage not reported. 34 days.
• 12017 64th Ave S. $560,000, 2,130 square feet, about $263 per square foot. 39 days, 2 percent over list.
• 11419 Crestwood Dr S. $530,000, 1,620 square feet, about $327 per square foot. 55 days, 4 percent under list.
• 7243 S 125th St. $470,000, 710 square feet, about $662 per square foot. 105 days, at list.
• 6703 S 120th St. $460,000, 1,300 square feet, about $354 per square foot. 66 days, 8 percent under list.
• 6633 S 118th St. $445,000, 1,100 square feet, about $405 per square foot. 50 days, at list.

Median across those seven: $530,000. Median days on market: 55.

So on real closings, not headlines, Earlington actually outsold Skyway by about $83,000 at the median, and Earlington’s homes moved about twice as fast, 28 days against 55. That is close to the opposite of what the two neighborhoods’ most recent snapshots implied on their own.

The Per-Square-Foot Difference That Decides Earlington vs Skyway

This is the part of Earlington vs Skyway that holds up better than either median, because it describes how each market behaves rather than where it happens to sit this month.

Earlington’s detached closings, sorted by size:

• 760 square feet at about $579 per square foot
• 1,520 square feet at about $403 per square foot
• 1,660 square feet at about $378 per square foot
• 1,780 square feet at about $365 per square foot
• 2,030 square feet at about $355 per square foot

That is a clean descending ladder. Test the reported $354 flat rate against it and the error runs one direction and shrinks steadily: short by about $171,000 on the 760 square foot home, short by about $1,400 on the 2,030 square foot home. The rate is wrong, but predictably wrong, and a buyer or seller can adjust for it.

Skyway’s closings, sorted by size:

• 710 square feet at about $662 per square foot
• 1,100 square feet at about $405 per square foot
• 1,300 square feet at about $354 per square foot
• 1,620 square feet at about $327 per square foot
• 1,780 square feet at about $337 per square foot
• 2,130 square feet at about $263 per square foot

There is a size inversion here too, but it does not stop where Earlington’s does. Test the reported $376 flat rate against it and the error runs in both directions. On the 710 square foot home, the flat rate predicts about $266,960 against an actual sale of $470,000, short by roughly $203,000. On the 2,130 square foot home, the flat rate predicts about $800,880 against an actual sale of $560,000, over by roughly $241,000.

That is the real, durable difference in Earlington vs Skyway. Earlington’s per-foot rate is biased in one direction and can be corrected with a simple adjustment as homes get bigger. Skyway’s per-foot rate is not biased, it is unreliable, and it fails badly on both a small starter home and a larger family house in the same neighborhood. Anyone using a single per-foot number to value a Skyway property is working from a tool that breaks at both ends of the range they are most likely to be shopping.

Jurisdiction: The Line That Does Not Move With the Market

Prices swing. This line does not. Earlington sits inside Renton city limits, with Renton police, Renton parks, and Renton addresses. Skyway-West Hill, immediately south and west, is an unincorporated King County census-designated place that receives county services instead, despite sitting on the same ridge.

That distinction shows up on the tax bill. Our Renton property taxes by neighborhood breakdown pulled the King County Assessor’s 2026 rate book directly and found that City of Renton levy codes inside Renton School District 403 run from $9.31646 to $10.57834 per $1,000 of assessed value, while unincorporated levy codes in the same school district, the kind that apply on the Skyway side, run from $10.20180 to $11.47540. That is a real, verifiable gap of roughly $0.90 to $1.00 per $1,000 in assessed value between an Earlington address and a comparable Skyway address, even before either hill’s home price enters the picture.

It also shows up in schools, though less cleanly than jurisdiction alone would suggest. Earlington falls inside the Renton School District 403 attendance area, with Campbell Hill Elementary serving much of the neighborhood and Renton High School at the high school level. Skyway is served primarily by Renton School District 403 as well, with Bryn Mawr, Lakeridge, and Campbell Hill elementary schools in the mix, but its northern pockets feed into Seattle Public Schools instead. A Skyway buyer has to verify district assignment address by address in a way an Earlington buyer generally does not. Our Renton school boundaries guide covers how the feeder patterns work across both areas.

Earlington vs Skyway on Market Time and Negotiating Room

Competitiveness reads differently on each side. Earlington’s Compete Score is 72, which Redfin still labels very competitive but places it as the least competitive neighborhood we track in Renton. Skyway’s Compete Score is 82, calculated over the last three months, with the average home selling about 2 percent below list and going pending in around 14 days, and hot listings pending in about 5 days.

The closing record adds texture to both. Five of Earlington’s seven recent sales closed at or above list, two of them by 5 and 10 percent, which argues for a market that rewards well-prepared, correctly priced listings even though the overall competitive pressure is lower. On Skyway, three of the seven closings took price cuts of 4 to 8 percent, and only one closed above asking, which is a cooler outcome than an 82 Compete Score would suggest. The two homes that closed exactly at list on Skyway had priced correctly from day one, and the ones that took cuts had not.

Set both hills against Renton citywide, which reports a median of $669,665, down 7.6 percent year over year, at $385 per square foot, with 205 sales, 18 days on market, and a Compete Score of 80. Earlington now trades below the city on price per square foot, at $354 against $385. Skyway trades below it too, at $376 against $385, a relationship that did not hold in our earlier read, when Skyway’s reported figure ran above the city’s own per-foot number. Both west-hill markets have pulled back toward, or under, Renton’s own pace over the last several weeks.

Who Should Buy Where: Earlington vs Skyway

Pulling it together, here is how we counsel a buyer genuinely weighing Earlington vs Skyway.

Choose Earlington if you want the more predictable per-foot market of the two, you are comfortable with an older housing stock of early-1900s cottages and mid-century homes, you want Renton city services and a simpler school-district picture, and you can tolerate periodic aircraft noise from the nearby Renton Municipal Airport. Our Earlington neighborhood guide covers the housing stock and daily life in full.

Choose Skyway if you want more square footage for the money at the larger end of the size range, you are drawn to one of the most diverse communities in Washington state, you do not mind unincorporated King County services in place of city ones, and you are willing to verify your school district assignment address by address. Our Skyway-West Hill neighborhood guide covers the community character and commute in depth, and our Skyway seller guide applies these numbers to a listing decision.

Either way, the one number we would not lean on is either hill’s headline median. Earlington’s rests on five sales in a five-month-old window. Skyway’s dropped roughly $90,000 in the space of a month on a much larger, more stable sample. Price off the closings that actually happened, not the figure at the top of the page.

Frequently Asked Questions About Earlington vs Skyway

Find a Home in Earlington or on Skyway West Hill

Earlington vs Skyway is a real question with a moving answer, and the honest version of that answer is that the gap between the two has narrowed and shifted direction more than once in the last several weeks. What has not moved is the jurisdiction line between them, the tax gap that comes with it, and the different way each market’s per-foot pricing breaks down as homes get bigger or smaller.

The Rache Team has guided families toward wealth and homeownership across both sides of this hill for more than 26 years, and we keep published price data and neighborhood guides for each. When you are ready to compare specific homes on Earlington vs Skyway, reach out and we will price them against the closings that actually happened.