Sept. ’22 Housing Market Update: $30,000 Drop in Median Sales Price

One month after setting a new record, Tri-Cities home prices took a step back last month. Meanwhile, the inventory of homes for sale dropped by just a bit, but we continue to have more than double the available homes now than we had a year ago.

Let’s take a closer look at this month’s housing market.

Tri-Cities Home Prices

The median price of the 363 homes that sold last month across the Tri-Cities was $420,000. That’s down more than $30,000 (a 7% decline) from the previous month, when we set a record at $450,490. It matches the median price we had back in January.

Home prices dropped in five of the six cities we track, with Benton City being the exception (on only 10 homes sold last month). And they weren’t small price declines, either. Pasco’s prices were down about $25,000, and that’s the smallest drop across the area. Prices were down more than $75,000 in Richland. What we’re seeing right now are the lowest home prices in many months. Take a look at this:

• Kennewick ($406,000): lowest since December 2021
• Pasco ($395,000): lowest since January 2022
• Richland ($445,450): lowest since November 2021
• West Richland: ($457,500): lowest since May 2021

That said…this is only a one-month decline, and one month does not make a trend. It’s quite possible prices will begin to rise this month, especially if buyer activity picks up again with summer vacations over and school back in session.

Tri-Cities Inventory of Available Homes

After six straight months of rising inventory, the number of homes for sale took a small step back this month — just a 3% decline, though. Most of that drop happened in Kennewick, where the 11% loss more than offset a 5% rise in homes for sale in Pasco.

We’re still above 600 available homes this month, which is good news for buyers. That means more to choose from. A year ago at this time, there were only 293 homes for sale!

I should also mention this, since it’s related to overall inventory: Homes are selling more slowly. In the lower left of the graphic above, you can see that we had a median of 10 days on market for the homes that sold last month. It’s been more than two years since homes have sold at that pace! In May 2020, our median was 13 days on market.

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.)