Housing market dips, but less than last year
The housing market in Washington is taking its usual seasonal dip, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, but not nearly as much so as a year ago. This home on Balsam Street in Moses Lake was listed for $350,000 as of Wednesday afternoon according to Realtor.com.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
MOSES LAKE — ’Tis the season for a sluggish housing market, according to data released last week by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which tracks real estate trends in 26 of Washington’s 39 counties.
Active listings were down 15.1% in Washington between October and November of this year, according to the NWMLS. The decrease in Grant County was only 7.5% in the same time, and Adams County's active listings remained almost the same. Closed sales, too, dropped off in Washington by 18.9% between October and November. Grant County closed sales decreased by 14.4%. Adams County again held steady, decreasing only 2% in the same time.
The picture is rather different when it comes to year-over-year change, however: Grant County active listings rose by 47%, the highest of any Washington county, between November 2023 and November 2024. Adams County had a less drastic rise, with 48 active listings in November 2024 compared to 45 a year earlier. Statewide, active listings were up 23.4% year-over-year.
Closed sales increased statewide year-over-year as well, according to the NWMLS, rising by 24.7%. Adams County, again, held steady in closed sales between November 2023 and November 2024, and Grant County lost a little bit of ground, with 69 closed sales in November 2024 compared to 75 last year.
Affordability seems to be a crucial factor, according to the NWMLS data. The median home price of a home rose 16.7% in Grant County and 39.6% in Adams County between November 2023 and 2024, compared to only a 7% increase statewide.
Steven Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington, suggested that recent developments in the Washington Legislature intended to promote the production of more housing boded well for home prices in the future, according to the NWMLS. Among the new laws coming into effect in the next couple of years will be an increase in density in residential areas and the promotion of accessory dwelling units.
“It will take time for these new laws to actually produce new housing,” Bourassa wrote, “but the expectation is that they will help in an important way to moderate the cost of homeownership.”