Housing market dips, but less than last year
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 7 months, 2 weeks AGO
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
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. | December 13, 2024 3:00 AM
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.”
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.