I know this is starting to sound like a broken record, but here we go again: For the third time in the past four months, we’re seeing record low home inventory across the six cities we watch each month.
This month’s snapshot found only 386 homes for sale in the Tri-Cities! The previous low was a month ago when inventory was at 450 homes. So that’s a 14% drop in just one month. And get this: It’s 44% lower than the 680 homes available one year ago.
Inventory dropped most in Kennewick and Richland, which are 18% and 24% lower than a month ago, respectively. In both cities, the number of available homes is the lowest since we started tracking 2+ years ago. It’s pretty typical for inventory to be low at this time of year. The problem is that we were already at record lows over the past few months, so this holiday decline is only making a difficult situation worse.
If there’s a silver lining for buyers, it’s this: Our low inventory isn’t forcing home prices higher. The area median that you see above, $335,000, is essentially unchanged from the median price back in August ($334,950).
Please drop us a note if you ever have questions about the housing market here in the Tri-Cities, or even in your specific neighborhood/town/city.
(*Remember that days on market can sometimes be skewed by how new construction homes are processed in the MLS.)
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