June ’23 Housing Marketing Update: Inventory & Sold Activity at Yearly High

The increase in activity that we usually see in March/April may have finally begun in May. And even with mortgage rates still hovering around 7%, there are some good signs for buyers in the current Tri-Cities housing market. Consider:

• There are more homes for sale today than any time so far in 2023.
• There are more existing single-family homes on the market than at any other time in 2023. These are homes that can be bought and moved into right away.
• Home prices are essentially unchanged since January.

Last month also saw our highest number of homes sold so far in 2023. Let’s take a deeper dive in to all those numbers and more.

Inventory of Homes for Sale in Tri-Cities, WA

Our June 6th snapshot found 656 homes for sale across the Tri-Cities, which is the highest our inventory has been so far this year. Inventory has risen for two straight months after a string of five months with fewer homes for sale. We currently have 76% more homes on the market than we did one year ago.

New construction is holding steady and represents about 44% of all available homes this month. Also, the number of new homes being built under $400K and under $500K are the highest they’ve been since we began tracking a year ago.

Existing homes represent the other 56% of this month’s inventory. There are more homes available under $400K than we’ve seen since March, and more available under $500K since we’ve seen since January.

Inventory is the highest it’s been in months in each of the formal “Tri-Cities.” Take a look:

• Kennewick homes for sale: 230 this month, the most since November 2022
• Pasco homes for sale: 155 this month, the most since December 2022
• Richland homes for sale: 195 this month, the most since March 2023

All of this points to more options for buyers, and that’s definitely good news.

Tri-Cities WA Home Prices and Homes Sold

Meanwhile, sales activity was also up last month. The 275 homes sold in May is the highest we’ve seen since last November. And homes are also selling faster. We had a median of just 11 days on market (DOM) last month — the fourth straight month that the median DOM has gone down.

Interestingly, even though activity was up and homes sold faster last month, prices didn’t rise. Quite the contrary, in fact. Month-over-month, home prices were down $17,500 to a median of $415,000 — exactly where prices were two months ago. Prices across the area are down 5.7% from one year ago. But we’re still in that same $400K to $450K window that we’ve been in since January 2022.

Kennewick was the only city we track to see prices go up last month.

And that’s a look at this month’s Tri-Cities housing market! As always, please drop us a note if you ever have questions about what’s happening around town or in your specific neighborhood.

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