Selling a Renton Hill home means deciding, before anything else, which of two contradictory numbers you are going to believe. Redfin leads its Renton Hill page with a median sale price of $939,000, up 80.6 percent in a year. A few inches down the same page it reports $808,000, down 7.7 percent. Both figures rest on two sales in a window that closed in February 2026, which is now seven months in the past.
Neither number should touch your listing. The four Renton Hill homes that have actually closed in 2026 ran from $725,000 to $925,000, and what separates the one that sold above asking from the three that gave money back has nothing to do with the median at all. It has to do with where each owner set the ask.
The Rache Team has spent more than 26 years guiding Renton families toward wealth and homeownership, and this hill above downtown holds some of the most distinctive housing in the city. This is our working playbook for selling a Renton Hill home: which published figures to discard, what the four real closings say, which per-square-foot rate applies to your house, and how long the sale genuinely takes.
Renton Hill seller snapshot
- Published median sale price: $939,000, up 80.6 percent year over year
- A second figure on the same page: $808,000, down 7.7 percent
- Homes in that published window: 2, in a window ending February 2026
- Median across the four closings Redfin currently displays: $830,000
- Range of those four closings: $725,000 to $925,000
- Published median price per square foot: $488, up 28.4 percent
- Actual per-foot rates across the four: $389, $399, $477 and $489
- Published median days on market: 57. Median across the four closings: about 43
- Sale-to-list across the four: three closed 3 percent under asking, one closed 4 percent over
- Renton citywide median: $669,636, down 7.6 percent, on 221 sales, window ending June 2026
- Renton citywide price per square foot: $417, unchanged year over year, at 15 days on market
- Redfin publishes no Compete Score for Renton Hill. Renton citywide scores 81
- Walk Score 61, Transit Score 54, Bike Score 30. Flood, fire and wind risk all rated minimal
Figures are Redfin calculations from MLS and public records, pulled at the time of writing. The neighborhood and citywide windows are four months apart, which is central to everything below.
Selling a Renton Hill Home Starts With Ignoring an 80 Percent Gain
We publish a Renton Hill price snapshot, and the first thing it tells a homeowner is not to price off it. That remains the honest position, and this hill is the clearest case in our entire catalogue of a published number that no seller should use.
According to Redfin’s Renton Hill market data, the neighborhood median is $939,000, up 80.6 percent, at $488 per square foot, up 28.4 percent. The trend panel immediately beneath that headline reports $808,000 and a 7.7 percent decline. Total homes sold in the window: two.
Housing markets do not appreciate 80 percent in a year. What that percentage records is that two homes closed in this year’s window and two closed in last year’s, and the recent pair happened to be larger or better finished. It is a fact about which four houses came up for sale, not a fact about anyone’s equity. The contradiction on the page is the same mechanism seen from the other side: when a median is drawn from two data points, a small change in how the window is cut swings the answer by more than $100,000.
The staleness compounds it. That February window has now been sitting on a page dated today for seven months while four genuine 2026 closings accumulated in the panel below it. This is the fourth consecutive Renton neighborhood where we have found the headline running months behind its own recently sold list, and Renton Hill is the most extreme of them.
So the rule for selling a Renton Hill home is blunt. Set the published median aside completely, in both of its versions, and work from the closings.
What the Four 2026 Renton Hill Closings Actually Show
Here is the real evidence base, taken from the recently sold panel on that same Redfin page. Four homes, all in 98057, all on the hill’s core streets:
- 811 Grant Ave S, 3 bed, 2 bath, 1,980 square feet, closed August 12 at $790,000, listed at $815,000, 3 percent under list, 54 days on market, about $399 per square foot
- 411 Cedar Ave S, 2 bed, 2.5 bath, 1,520 square feet, closed May 29 at $725,000, listed at $699,950, 4 percent over list, 29 days on market, about $477 per square foot
- 808 Renton Ave S, 3 bed, 2 bath, 1,780 square feet, closed May 14 at $870,000, listed at $895,000, 3 percent under list, 31 days on market, about $489 per square foot
- 420 Renton Ave S, 3 bed, 3 bath, 2,380 square feet, closed March 6 at $925,000, listed at $949,999, 3 percent under list, 84 days on market, about $389 per square foot
The median of those four is $830,000, roughly $160,000 above the Renton citywide median of $669,636. Every one of them cleared the city figure comfortably. Whatever the published percentages do, this hill trades at a durable premium, and it has done so through every pull we have taken this year.
One more 2026 sale belongs in your thinking even though it no longer appears on that panel. Our August snapshot recorded a fifth closing, a 3,510 square foot house on S 5th Pl that sold in early March for $1,650,000, or about $470 per square foot. Redfin’s displayed list has since rolled it off. Include it and the five-sale median rises to $870,000 and the top of the range moves to $1.65 million. It matters for anyone selling a Renton Hill home at the larger end, because without it the visible ceiling looks like $925,000 when it is not.
Notice how small this set is. Five closings in eight months, in a neighborhood where the city as a whole recorded 221 sales in June alone. That scarcity is the defining condition of pricing here, and it is why Redfin publishes no Compete Score for Renton Hill at all. There is not enough transaction volume to calculate one.
Want the actual comparable set for your address instead of a median built on two old sales? Request a Renton Hill home value review and we will build the number from the closings that genuinely compare to your house.
Selling a Renton Hill Home: Where You Set the Ask Decides Everything
This is the finding that should shape your listing, and it is visible the moment you sort the four closings by asking price rather than by sale price.
- Asked $699,950, sold 4 percent over, 29 days
- Asked $815,000, sold 3 percent under, 54 days
- Asked $895,000, sold 3 percent under, 31 days
- Asked $949,999, sold 3 percent under, 84 days
The only house on this hill that got bid up in 2026 was the one asking the least. Every owner who came out above $800,000 gave back 3 percent, and the one asking most sat nearly three months to do it. That is a very clean pattern for a four-sale sample, and it points at something real about how this pocket clears.
Set it against the city for scale. Redfin reports that the average Renton home sells about 1 percent below list and goes pending in around 23 days. Renton Hill sellers who reached gave back triple that discount and waited roughly twice as long to take it. The hill does not punish ambition with a failed sale. It punishes it with a slow one and a reduction at the end.
The practical translation is that on Renton Hill the ask is not an opening position. The buyer pool is too thin to negotiate you upward. Four or five houses trade here in a year, so at any moment there may be two or three genuinely interested buyers in the market, not twenty. A price that reads as fair gets met. A price that reads as a stretch gets ignored until it is reduced, and by then the listing has an age on it that costs you the last few percent anyway.
This is nearly the reverse of what we found in the Renton Highlands seller playbook, where volume is high enough that an aggressive ask gets tested quickly and corrected within a few weeks. On Renton Hill the same mistake takes a quarter to surface.
Price Per Square Foot on This Hill Has Two Bands, Not One
The usual repair for an unusable median is to switch to price per square foot. On Renton Hill that repair is better than it is in most of the city, but it needs one correction we did not have earlier this year.
Run the rate across the four current closings, in size order:
- 1,520 square feet at about $477 per square foot
- 1,780 square feet at about $489 per square foot
- 1,980 square feet at about $399 per square foot
- 2,380 square feet at about $389 per square foot
Why the published $488 rate only describes half the hill
Read as a size curve, that looks like a clean inversion where bigger houses carry lower rates. It is not, and the March sale is what proves it. That 3,510 square foot house, by far the largest of the year, closed at about $470 per square foot, which puts the biggest home on the hill in the same band as the smallest.
What Renton Hill actually has is two bands roughly $90 apart. A high band near $470 to $489 that holds three of the five 2026 closings across 1,520, 1,780 and 3,510 square feet, and a low band near $389 to $399 holding the other two. Square footage does not sort a house into one or the other. Condition, period detail, outlook and lot do.
That is a meaningful revision to what our August snapshot said, and we would rather correct it than repeat it. At that point four closings appeared to hold a nearly flat rate across all sizes. The August 12 sale on Grant Ave, which came in at $399 on a mid-sized house, broke that reading. The honest version is the two-band version.
For anyone selling a Renton Hill home the consequence is direct. The published $488 rate is only the top band. Applying it to a house that belongs in the lower band overprices you by close to $200,000 on a 2,000 square foot home, which is very close to what happened to the two owners who took 3 percent haircuts after long listings. Deciding honestly which band your house sits in is the single most valuable hour of pricing work you will do.
Selling a Renton Hill Home: How Long It Really Takes
Slower than the city, and slower than most sellers here expect. The published median is 57 days. Across the four real closings the median is about 43 days, with a range from 29 to 84. Renton citywide is 15 days on the headline and 23 in Redfin’s own competitiveness panel.
Whichever figure you use, selling a Renton Hill home takes two to three times longer than the city average, and the reason is buyer pool rather than weak demand. Someone shopping for a 1920s house on a graded lot above downtown is not the same buyer comparing three similar plateau ramblers over a weekend. There are fewer of them, they take longer to find the house, and when they find it they move decisively.
That has one important implication for how you hold your nerve. Two quiet weekends on Renton Hill mean almost nothing. In the Highlands, where dozens of homes close every month, the same silence is a pricing signal worth acting on. Here it is a Tuesday. The sellers who lose money on this hill are usually the ones who start cutting in week three against a citywide average that was never describing them.
Plan for six weeks of live market time before you reconsider anything, and put the reconsideration on the calendar in advance so it is a decision rather than a reaction. The seasonal shape matters too, and we walk through it in our Renton fall market guide.
What Buyers on Renton Hill Are Actually Paying For
The premium over the city is real and it has specific sources. Knowing which ones your house has is how you decide which per-foot band you are in, and it is the part of selling a Renton Hill home that a spreadsheet cannot do for you.
Period character that has been maintained. This is early twentieth century housing stock with detail that nothing built since can replicate. Buyers who come to this hill come for it deliberately. Original woodwork, windows, built-ins and floors that have been cared for read as value in a way that a comparable amount of money spent on generic updating does not.
Elevation and outlook. The hill rises south and east of downtown along Renton Avenue South and Cedar Avenue South, and the lots that deliver a valley or territorial view are a distinct subset of the neighborhood. This is one of the clearest reasons two houses of similar size land in different bands.
The walk to downtown. Redfin scores the neighborhood 61 for walkability and 54 for transit, described as good transit. The residential streets stay quiet while the downtown core is a short walk away, which is a combination the plateau neighborhoods cannot offer. Our guide to downtown Renton covers what that core now holds.
Minimal flood risk. First Street rates flood, fire and wind risk all minimal here. That is a genuine contrast with the low-lying grid near the Cedar River and the lake, and it is worth stating plainly in your listing because buyers comparing Renton neighborhoods are increasingly checking it.
Age cuts the other way on price, and it is worth being realistic. An older house on a sloped lot with deferred maintenance will be discounted, because the buyer is pricing in work whose cost they cannot see yet. That is a valuation question rather than a repair question, and the fix is usually to price the house as it is rather than to price it as though the work were done. Our Renton Hill neighborhood guide covers the streets and the architecture in more depth.
Selling a Renton Hill Home: Our Pricing Sequence
This is the order we work in on this hill, and the order matters.
1. Discard both published medians
The $939,000 headline and the $808,000 trend figure describe two houses that sold before last spring. Neither is a starting point, an anchor, or a sanity check. Remove them from the conversation before anyone gets attached to the larger one.
2. Build the comparable set from the 2026 closings
Five sales, $725,000 to $1,650,000. That is the whole market. We work address by address from there, because on a hill this small the specific house two blocks over tells you more than any aggregate can.
3. Decide which per-foot band your house belongs in
High band near $470 to $489, low band near $389 to $399. Character, condition, outlook and lot decide it, not size. This is the judgment call that determines most of your final number, and it is the one we spend the most time on when we walk a house.
4. Selling a Renton Hill home means setting an ask that can be met
Every 2026 seller who priced above $800,000 gave back 3 percent. The one who priced to be met got 4 percent over asking in 29 days. Choose a number a motivated buyer can say yes to rather than one they have to argue you down from.
5. Plan for about six weeks and hold through the first month
The real median is around 43 days and the range runs to 84. Decide your review date before you list, and do not let a quiet first two weekends move it.
6. Lead the listing with character, outlook and the walk downtown
The buyer for this house is looking for a specific thing. Photograph and describe the period detail, the view, the lot and the proximity to the downtown core first, because those are what separate a top-band price from a lower-band one.
We run this same sequence across the city with real variations, and the variations are the point. Our Talbot Hill seller playbook handles a neighborhood where per-foot math does not work at all, and our North Renton playbook handles a published median that understates the market by roughly $200,000. Selling a Renton Hill home is its own problem with its own answer.
Thinking about selling a Renton Hill home this season?
We will build your price from the closings that actually compare, walk your house before anything goes live, and give you a market-time plan you can hold to. No pressure and no obligation.
Contact The Rache Team or book a time with us directly.
Raché Boston, Managing Broker, The Rache Team at John L. Scott Real Estate
(425) 652-6473 | racheb@johnlscott.com
Guiding families toward wealth and homeownership.
Frequently Asked Questions About Selling a Renton Hill Home
What is my Renton Hill home actually worth right now?
The workable range is $725,000 to $1,650,000 based on the five homes that closed on the hill in 2026, with a median of $870,000 across all five and $830,000 across the four Redfin currently displays. Where your house lands inside that range depends far more on condition, period detail and outlook than on square footage. The published median of $939,000 is not a valid starting point, because it rests on two sales in a window that ended in February 2026.
Should I price my house off the published 80.6 percent gain?
No. That figure compares two sales this year against two sales last year, so it records which houses happened to come up for sale rather than any change in value. Redfin’s own trend panel on the same page simultaneously reports a 7.7 percent decline, which is the clearest available evidence that the sample cannot support a trend. Pricing to the 80.6 percent headline is the most expensive mistake available on this hill.
Can I use price per square foot when selling a Renton Hill home?
Yes, more than in most of Renton, but only after you decide which of two bands your house sits in. The 2026 closings split into a high band around $470 to $489 per square foot and a low band around $389 to $399, and size does not predict which one a house lands in. The published rate of $488 describes the high band only. Applying it to a lower-band house overprices a 2,000 square foot home by close to $200,000.
How long does selling a Renton Hill home take?
Plan for about six weeks. The median across the 2026 closings is roughly 43 days, with a range from 29 to 84, and Redfin publishes a 57 day median for the neighborhood. Renton citywide runs 15 to 23 days, so the hill takes two to three times longer. That is a function of a small, specific buyer pool rather than weak demand, and it is not a reason to reduce your price in week three.
Should I expect offers over asking on Renton Hill?
Only if your ask is set to be met. One of the four 2026 closings sold above list, and it was the one asking the least, at $699,950. The three that asked $815,000 or more all closed 3 percent under. For comparison, the average Renton home sells about 1 percent below list. The buyer pool here is too small to bid a stretch price upward, so the discount comes out at the end instead.
Does the age of my house hurt me when selling a Renton Hill home?
Age itself is why buyers come to this hill, so well-kept period character is an asset rather than a liability. What gets discounted is visible deferred maintenance, because a buyer prices in work whose cost they cannot yet see. The usual answer is to price the house honestly as it stands rather than as though the work were already done, and to let the character carry the listing.
Why is there no Redfin Compete Score for Renton Hill?
The neighborhood does not close enough homes to support the calculation. Competitiveness scores need a meaningful volume of sales, offers and list-to-sale comparisons, and a pocket recording four or five closings a year does not supply it. Renton citywide scores 81. The absence on the hill is a useful reminder that every published Renton Hill statistic should be read as a very small sample rather than a market reading.
Find a Home or Sell One on Renton Hill
Selling a Renton Hill home is not difficult because the market is weak. Every 2026 closing here cleared the Renton citywide median comfortably, and the hill has held its premium through every pull we have taken this year. It is difficult because almost every published number attached to the neighborhood is built on a sample too small to mean anything, and because the price you choose on day one determines the outcome more completely here than in any other part of the city we cover.
Whether you are selling a Renton Hill home this fall or still weighing it, we will give you the real comparable set, an honest read on which per-foot band your house sits in, and a market-time plan you can hold. Reach The Rache Team at (425) 652-6473 or racheb@johnlscott.com, send us a note, or book time on our calendar.