Oct. 23 Housing Market Update: Home Sales Slow, Like Most Octobers

Call it the Autumn drop. Call it the “school’s back in session” drop. Call it whatever you want, but a Tri-Cities’ real estate market certainty is that sales activity starts to slow down at this time of year.

2023 is no exception, as you can see above. We had a sizable drop in sold activity last month, and a small drop in home prices. Inventory, on the other hand, is holding steady.

This is important for sellers: Now is the time to be patient. I’ll explain more below. Let’s dive in.

Tri-Cities Sales Activity Last Month

We had 264 closings in September, a 21% drop from the month before. You can see that all-red line in the middle of the market stats: Closings dropped last month in all six cities we track.

As I said above, part of this just the normal seasonality of our market. But that’s not all. Mortgage rates have been hovering around record highs over the past month, and that’s keeping a lot of buyers on the sidelines.

Not only did we have fewer homes sell last month, but they sold more slowly, too. Our median days on market is at its highest (slowest) point in the past six months. Homes took longer to sell last month in every city we track except for Richland.

And that’s why sellers need to be patient now. With school back in session, the holidays approaching, and high mortgage rates, I wouldn’t expect an influx of buyers in the near future.

Tri-Cities Home Prices

Median prices went up almost $37,000 in Richland last month, but that wasn’t enough to offset lower prices for homes that sold in Kennewick in Pasco. Overall, our median price dropped by $10,000.

We’re now at nine straight months where prices have stayed in between $415K and $435K. And it’s been since January 2022 that prices have stayed in between $400K and $450K.

The median list price of those homes that sold last month was $425,000, so homes are selling at about 99% of list price.

Tri-Cities Available Homes for Sale

Our inventory of homes for sale went up just a tiny bit when we did this month’s snapshot. We passed 800 homes on the market for the first time in at least five years. The 808 homes for sale is up 21% from this time last year.

We currently have 3.1 months of inventory — still considered a sellers market, but very different from six months ago when we had 2.1 months of inventory.

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.)