Interest rates continue to drag down housing market in Washington
This three-bedroom three-bath home in Moses Lake was listed at $285,000 Wednesday. Median home prices rose statewide a little over 4% over a year ago, but homes in Grant and Adams counties became more affordable.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
KIRKLAND — 2024 ended with a disappointing housing market statewide, according to data released by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which tracks real estate across 26 of Washington’s 39 counties.
Interest rates were responsible for much of the gloom, according to the NWMLS. While potential home buyers and sellers had hoped for a reprieve, the Federal Reserve’s three interest rate cuts in 2024 failed to produce a significant increase in the market. Rather, in early January the average 30-year mortgage rate was 6.91%, the highest it’s been since last July.
Median home prices went up statewide by 4.3% between December 2023 and December 2024. In Grant County, however, the median price dropped very slightly from $360,950 to $356,582 over the last year, and in Adams County the median price dropped 10.3% from $322,500 to $292,300, the second-lowest median home price of any county.
On the positive side, active listings were up 25% between December 2023 and 2024 statewide, with 21 of 26 counties showing a two-digit increase, according to the NWMLS. Grant County had the second-highest increase in active listings at 39.9%, while Adams County rose 11.1%.
Closed sales also rose statewide. Homes sold in Washington totaled more than $3.69 billion in December 2024, according to the NWMLS, an increase of 24.8%, and the number of closed sales increased by 19.8% over December 2023. In Grant County, closed sales increased 43% between December 2023 and December 2024, while Adams County had 10 closed sales in December 2023 but only four in December 2024.
Months of inventory, or the amount of time it would take to sell all the homes on the market, remained fairly stagnant statewide, going from 1.9 in December 2023 to 2.0 in December 2024. In Adams County, that figure rose dramatically, up 179% to 9.5 months, while Grant County mirrored the rest of the state and held steady at 3.5.
“The 30-year mortgage interest rate was actually higher at the end of 2024 (6.85%) than at the end of 2023 (6.61%),” Steven Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington, wrote in the NWMLS data release. He anticipates that mortgage rates will continue to frustrate the market. “We may well be experiencing the pains of adjusting to a new normal, with persistent interest rates of 6% or higher.”