Good news: It looks like the Tri-Cities housing market is continuing to shift! Mind you, we’re nowhere near a normal/balanced market, but things are definitely shifting back in that direction. Let’s dive into this month’s numbers.
When we did our market snapshot on Thursday, there were 270 homes available. That’s a 36% increase over July and it’s the third consecutive month our inventory has gone up. Of those 270 available homes, only 95 are new construction. That means we have 175 homes available that can be bought and moved into right away. Last month, we only had 199 available homes total. The last time we had 270 or more homes available in the Tri-Cities was this past February when inventory was 324 homes. Inventory was up this month in all six cities we track, and it’s been 5-6 months since inventory has been at these levels in each city.
That’s all good news for buyers: more choices and more homes that are ready to be lived in compared to what we’ve seen in the past several months.
But again, we’re still far from normal. One year ago, we had 529 homes available. So this month’s inventory is still down 49% from 2020. Go back one more year and it’s a 57% drop from August 2019.
Our median price last month was $395,000, breaking the previous all-time high set two months ago of $389,900. You have to wonder if we’ll hit the $400K milestone in the next month or two. Maybe, but with inventory rising and the number of homes sold dropping, that should put lower pressure on home prices. We’ll see.
Richland and West Richland both set new records with their median home prices of $451,000 and $471,200, respectively. Both Kennewick and Pasco are within $10,000 of their all-time highs.
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.)
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