Real estate market slower than last year, data shows

MOSES LAKE — Real estate sales slowed down in September compared to the same time last year, according to the most recent statistics from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Active property listings dropped 20% in Washington state overall, according to the NMLS. In Adams County, the shift was about the same, down 21% from 61 active listings to 48. Grant County bucked the trend, increasing 18% from 211 listings in September 2022 to 259 in September 2023.

New listings were down 19% statewide compared to last year, according to the NMLS. Grant County had a 22% decrease, from 112 new listings to 87 in 2023. Adams County’s decrease was by a single listing, 14 to 13. 

Pending and closed sales dropped in about the same proportions statewide as new listings, but in Grant County the decrease was slight, while those figures dropped by almost half in Adams County.

The median price of homes sold increased in 15 out of 26 counties, declined in nine counties and remained unchanged in two counties relative to September 2022. The statewide median price rose by a single percentage point, but Grant County showed a bit more vitality, rising 6% from $350,000 to $373,000. The median home price in Adams County, meanwhile, dropped 16%, from $358,859 to $300,000.

Washington state held fairly steady in months of inventory, the amount of time it would take to sell all the properties on the market, according to the NMLS data. Statewide months of inventory stood at 2.1, up slightly from 2.0 in September 2022. That’s about where the figure stood in September 2019 as well, but in 2020 and 2021 it dipped to 0.9 and .08 respectively.

Grant County had 2.8 months of inventory in September 2023, compared to 2.0 in 2022. Grant County’s figure dropped in 2020 and 2021 as well, but not as drastically as the state as a whole, 1.5 months and 1.2 months respectively. Adams County, on the other hand, rose meteorically. In 2021, the earliest year for which data was available, Adams County had 1.0 months of inventory. In September 2022 it was up to 6.1 months, and in September 2023 it had risen to 9.6. That figure represented a more-than-threefold increase in a single month, as August 2023 showed only 3.1 months of inventory.

“The real estate market typically slows down in the fall and winter months,” Mason Virant, associate director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at The University of Washington, wrote in the NMLS’s announcement accompanying the data. “However, the high-interest rate environment has further decreased the purchasing power of prospective buyers leading to a continued decline in year-over-year transaction volume with overall median prices stagnating.”

“The combination of low inventories and pent-up demand suggest that home price pressures will continue to mount and drive home prices up some 5% by next September,” wrote Selma Hepp, executive and chief economist with CoreLogic.