January 2009 Tri-Cities, WA Real Estate Stats

By in Tri-Cities Housing Market with 1 Comment
Published on February 28, 2009 / Last updated on February 28, 2009

Listings are down, and have been down for a while now. Sales were down in January, too, as compared to the last few Januarys. We are currently still in a balanced market because although supply is down, so is demand.

real estate chart

But (and this is a BIG ‘but’), demand is forecast to increase toward the end of the year. Billions of dollars are coming from the stimulus package to create jobs in our area. Jobs bring people. People need to live somewhere, and with rates as low as they are, why not buy a house? So, say it’s November ’09, and you’re moving to the Tri-Cities. And a lot of other people are also moving here. More people will be competing for fewer listings, which means that sellers will have the upper hand and a seller’s market will prevail.

Many of our local builders, whom we counted on to keep supply in-line with demand, have slowed their building significantly, or stopped building entirely because the need was no longer there. It took them many months to decelerate their production, and it will take many months to amp it back up again. They may not be up-to-speed in time for the peak at the end of this year, beginning of next. And if they’re not, either because they don’t see the need, or think it’ll be too expensive to get the building machine in gear again for what might be a short-term boom, the seller’s market will be more than just a blip on the radar screen.

So, if you are thinking of buying in the Tri-Cities, let me urge you to do so in the first half of this year. You’ll likely get the best deal. Buy later, and you just might find yourself in a multiple offer situation, offering more than you would have just a few months earlier.

Download the full Tri-City Real Estate stats for January, 2009. (649k PDF)

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About The Author
Cari McGee

My husband and I came to the Tri-Cities in 1994, and we thought it would be a temporary stop on our way to larger cities. He was a television sports anchor at the time, and we planned to go wherever the "next step up" took us. Twenty-plus years later, we're still here and we've loved every minute of it! We have two children now, and we've found the Tri-Cities area is a wonderful place to raise a family. It's a great place to do outdoorsy things -- I like to hike Badger Mountain or run along the river path. I also love reading ... by a cozy fire in the winter or a beautiful picture window in the summer (with the A/C on!). I've been a licensed Realtor since 2004. I earned my managing broker's license in 2016, which means I can run my own brokerage, or create a team of real estate agents and supervise them, which is exactly what I did when I formed the Cari McGee Real Estate Team in 2018! We have administrative and marketing personnel, as well as additional agents to serve you. I became a director of the Tri-Cities Association of Realtors Board of Directors in 2016, became Secretary/Treasurer of the organization, and was elected to Vice President in 2019. Want to talk about real estate? Click here to schedule a meeting with me!

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