Tri-Cities Housing Inventory is Even Tighter Than It Seems

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new home under construction

Did you catch our Tri-Cities housing market update this month? If so, you read about the continuing inventory crunch. When we did our snapshot last week, there were only 324 homes on the market in Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, West Richland, Benton City, and Burbank. That’s 42% lower than the number of homes available one year ago.

And here’s the thing: Our inventory situation is even worse than those numbers show. We did a little more digging into the types of homes available and what’s available at different price points. Take a look at this:

Most of our current inventory is new construction.

Of those 324 homes on the market last week, 170 were listed as new construction in the MLS. What this means is that more than half of the homes “on the market” right now are homes that are still being built, and won’t be move-in ready for anywhere from a week or two all the way 4-6 months from now.

The other 154 homes available are re-sale homes — these are the homes that a buyer can purchase and move into as soon as the sale closes.

Most of our current inventory is above $300,000.

Of those 324 available homes, only 75 of them have an asking price below $300,000. And if you remove the new construction from that, you end up with only 58 homes below $300K that are re-sale.

Going a little lower on price, the numbers get even tighter. When we did our snapshot last week, there were only 49 homes available below $250,000. And 13 of those were new construction, leaving 36 re-sale homes below $250K.

Bottom Line

I’ve been talking about the Tri-Cities’ inventory situation for many months now, but it’s even tighter than it seems. When you remove new construction — homes that aren’t finished and move-in ready — we only have about 150 homes on the market (as of February 5). And if you’re looking in the lower price ranges, the numbers are much lower. There are only 58 re-sale homes below $300,000 and 36 below $250,000.

Buyers, you really need to be pre-approved right now and be ready to act fast when you find a home you love. But don’t lose hope! Our team has been helping buyers find homes in this tight market, and helping them write the kind of offers that win bidding wars. Get in touch with us if you have any questions!

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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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