Housing market remains tight in Columbia Basin
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 years, 4 months AGO
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | March 4, 2022 1:20 AM
COLUMBIA BASIN — Real estate professionals seem to be pretty well agreed on what home buyers are looking for in today’s market.
“Really, they’re looking for a lot of everything, honestly,” said Tara Zerbo, an agent with Gary Mann Realty in Moses Lake.
“There’s kind of a desperation,” said Brian Gentry, of Re/Max in Othello. “People are almost looking for anything. There’s so few homes on the market. People are looking for something decent, something that’s fair-priced. But overall, they’re looking for anything.”
There just aren’t a lot of homes on the market, and the law of supply and demand is rearing its interesting head in a big way.
“With so many people coming into the market, Moses Lake is super-desirable, the location, weather, jobs, community – the whole thing that our area has to offer,” said Zerbo. “We need more homes to house them. And there’s just simply not enough.”
“It’s really competitive,” said Cassie Day, an agent with Touchstone Realty based in Cheney who handles a lot of properties in Grant and Adams counties. “We’re seeing prices have gone up significantly. I think it’s gone up 20% in Grant County since last year, which is a large jump. We’re generally seeing homes only sitting on the market for maybe a week.”
Smaller markets are less affected by the crunch, Day added, and many of her clients are opting to buy in outlying towns and commute. The sort of commute that would take hours in a more urban area like Seattle or Spokane is comparatively quick when there’s more sagebrush than traffic between towns.
“When you’re looking at those small outlying areas like Lind or Ritzville, those homes tend to stay on the market a little bit longer, and their pricing hasn’t escalated quite as much, and so for people who are looking to buy a home, it’s easier to buy in a smaller area than it is to get into Moses Lake proper,” Day said. “Looking at outlying towns has been how I’ve gotten some of my clients houses because they have more of a shot than they do in a bigger city.”
For the home buyers who have some options, multi-functional space seems to be in demand, Zerbo said, as there are still people working from home in the wake of the pandemic while others are transitioning back to the office.
Custom-built homes on acreage are also gaining popularity, according to professionals.
“People are always looking for land, always looking for acreage. That’s been a big thing,” said Zerbo.
“The people who call me would love something in the country,” said Gentry. “They would love something on acreage. So those houses go very quickly. Or land, land to build. That’s something I get asked about constantly. (People think) if they’re going to pay these kinds of prices they might as well build something they want.”
Zerbo noted that a large number of the buyers she deals with are looking to change the scale of their home, either moving up for more space – say, for a growing family – or downsizing as their nests begin to empty.
“Especially with the Baby Boomer generation, a lot of them have second stories, and they don’t want stairs anymore,” she said. “Or all the kids have moved out and they’re like, ‘This is way too much to clean, I don’t need all this anymore.’”
Those retiring downsizers have proven to be a boon to the “move-up” buyers, she said, as the homes they leave are snapped up by folks looking for more space.
Still, the growing population in Grant and Adams counties is keeping the market tight
“There’s just simply not enough,” said Zerbo. “So if people are thinking about maybe it’s the right time to sell, we are definitely in need of more homes.”
MORE STORIES
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN

Perfect blooms
Tips for entering flowers at the fair
MOSES LAKE — You’ve worked all year to make your flower garden a thing of beauty. What better way to show it off than to enter them in the fair? The Grant County Fair has divisions and classes for every kind of flower or flower arrangement under the sun. Valerie Parrott, president of the Columbia Basin Garden Club and a judge in the fair’s horticulture barn, has tips for making your flowers look the best they can. “Flowers are judged on how close they are to perfection,” Parrott said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re the smallest flower or the largest flower. It only matters how close to perfect the bloom is.” With that in mind, Parrott said, timing is crucial. Exhibits are dropped off Monday morning of fair week, which this year is Aug. 11, and judging begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday. That means the flower you’re entering needs to be perfect right then.

Civil Air Patrol cadets take to the skies over Ephrata
EPHRATA — There couldn’t have been a better climate to teach teenagers to fly in. “We’ve had really good weather,” said Civil Air Patrol Lt. Col. Kathy Maxwell. “Usually by now we’ve had a smoke day or a windy day, or an overcast day.” The CAP cadets are wrapping up the second week of this year’s Desert Eagle National Flight Academy, held every year at Camp Boucher at the Port of Ephrata. Nineteen cadets from around the country, plus one from Japan, came to Ephrata to learn the basics of flying: airplane systems, pre- and post-flight procedures, navigation. In between they’re flying around the Ephrata Airport, first with instructors, then finally solo. The skies between Ephrata and Moses Lake are pretty mellow for flying, but that doesn’t mean there will be no surprises, cadets said.

‘Everyone Has a Why’
Campaign seeks to bring opioid addiction out of the shadows
MOSES LAKE — The reasons for addiction are many, but everybody has one. That’s the point of a campaign by the Grant County Health District to highlight opioid addiction and overdoses. It’s part of a two-phase campaign to explain some of the reasons behind addiction, and encourage people to seek help. “It can be loss, or pain, or struggle, but everyone has a reason that they may start using substances,” said Lexi Smith, communications coordinator for the Grant County Health District. “But on the flip side of that, everyone has a reason that they don’t, or that they choose to help someone who does.” The tagline for the Everybody Has a Why campaign is “Make addiction a conversation, not a secret,” and removing the shame of seeking help is a primary aim.