April ’21 Housing Market Update: Prices Hit All-Time High, Inventory Hits All-Time Low

Every month we think the Tri-Cities housing market can’t get any more unbalanced, and every month it does. This month, I have several all-time records to report:

1.) Lowest inventory across the Tri-Cities: The 201 active listings that we saw this week are the lowest going all the way back to the early 1990s, which is as far back as TCAR’s online data goes. Each of the main cities has its lowest inventory that I’ve ever seen. More on that below.

2.) Tri-Cities home prices hit all-time high: The median price of homes that sold last month in the Tri-Cities was $358,645, an all-time high. The previous high was $341,990 set two months ago.

3.) Kennewick, Pasco, West Richland hit all-time high prices: Not only did the median price across the whole area set a record last month, but the median prices in all the main cities except Richland also set records.

A Closer Look at Available Inventory

As I mentioned above, there were only 201 homes on the market when we did our snapshot on Monday afternoon. BUT … of those homes, 95 are new construction. That leaves only 106 homes for sale that a buyer could move into right away. If you take away new construction homes, here’s what the inventory looks like across the area:

• Kennewick: 38 homes available
• Pasco: 21
• Richland: 34
• West Richland: 4
• Benton City: 9

I also took a look at the median list prices of all the homes that are available. It’s $485,000 for the whole batch of 201 homes. If you take away the new construction, the median asking price of the existing homes is $425,000. This is like nothing I’ve seen in my 17 years in real estate!

As always, please drop us a note if you ever have questions about the housing market here in the Tri-Cities, or even in your specific neighborhood/town/city.

(*Remember that days on market can sometimes be skewed by how new construction homes are processed in the MLS.)