The story in Seattle summer real estate is a market where sales have come to a grinding halt and inventory is starting to build. The story on Capitol Hill, according to the latest July tallies, is the same — it’s a tough time to be a real estate agent on the Hill with only the predominantly single family home area around Stevens Elementary bucking the local and national trends.

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Redfin interviewed a Capitol Hill agent who described the situation thusly:

I’ve had three potential buyers approach me in the last week after a listing expired or went under contract, saying they’d been watching the home for a while and wanted to make an offer.

Here’s a look at the July numbers provided by Redfin and crunched by us. Inventory on the Hill in houses, condos and townhouses combined was up 3.1% vs. July 2009 and total sales fell 28.4%. If it wasn’t for the “strength” of the area categorized as Stevens — where one more property was sold in July 2010 than July 2009 — things would have looked even more bleak on the Hill.

Here are the breakouts for houses and condos where pricing data sets are also included. You can see that in both houses and condos, not only did the number of sales fall, but prices were down vs. 2009. Capitol Hill condos were particularly weak with a +40% drop in sales and a 22% drop in sales prices. Across the city, condo prices were only down 1%. Meanwhile, inventory is starting to stack up. In the Broadway market measurement from Redfin, they tallied 146 available condo units at the end of July. That’s 12% more on the market than there were at the end of July 2009.

Houses – For Sale

Houses – Sold

Condos – For Sale

Condos – Sold