Home sales, prices hold steady
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 2 months AGO
This house was listed at $345,000 Wednesday in Moses Lake. Median home prices are up slightly in Washington over last year.
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. | August 8, 2025 12:09 PM
COLUMBIA BASIN — Home sales increased sluggishly in the last year, according to a report by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which tracks real estate trends in 26 Washington counties.
The inertia is due to the mortgage rate, which has stayed pretty close to the same over the last year, according to the report. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.72% Wednesday, according to Freddie Mac, compared to 6.47% this week in August 2024. Closed sales rose 3.81% statewide between July 2024 and July 2025, according to the NWMLS data.
The picture locally was a little more active, according to the NWMLS. Closed sales were up in Grant County by 30% and in Adams County by 75%.
Active listings were another story, according to the NWMLS. Statewide, 20,781 properties were listed for sale at the end of July 2025, an increase of 4.96% from June 2025 and 37.42% over July 2024. All of the 26 counties saw double-digit increases in listings, except Okanogan, which was up 8.7%. Grant County’s increase was 44.51% year-over-year, while Adams County’s was 26.09%.
Median home prices remained stable statewide year-over-year, according to the NWMLS data, and dropped 2.99% from June 2025. The median price in Adams County in July 2025 was $349,999, an increase of 5.42% over July 2024 and the lowest in the 26 counties. In Grant County the median price was $364,308, up 6.06% from a year ago.
Within Grant County there was a wide variation in price increases. The area south and east of Moses Lake that includes Warden and Wheeler posted a median home price of $415,454, nearly double that of July 2024. Prices in the Peninsula area of Moses Lake, by contrast, were down 19.07% to $278,000.
“As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank kept the federal funds rate unchanged at its July 30 meeting, reflecting ongoing concerns about inflation,” Steven Bourassa, Director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington, wrote in the report. “Although the federal funds rate is not directly related to mortgage rates, this decision does suggest that there is unlikely to be any improvement in mortgage rates in the near future.”
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Endless battle
Noxious Weed Control Board works to keep invasive plants under control
MOSES LAKE — Some of the nastiest plants in Grant County were the topic of a class led by Jay Johnson, a consultant with the Grant County Noxious Weed Control Board, Tuesday. The Noxious Weed Control Board, as its name would suggest, is tasked with keeping weeds under control in Grant County. That’s not a small job; the board’s website lists 129 species of noxious weeds that are found around Grant County. A noxious weed is defined as an invasive, non-native plant that threatens agricultural crops, local ecosystems or fish and wildlife habitat, according to the Noxious Weed Control Board. Washington state law requires that these weeds be identified and their spread kept to a minimum, if not completely eradicated. “We’re one of those agencies a lot of people don’t really understand,” Johnson said. “We’re a county office and … our funding is tax-based assessment. When you get your tax bill and you look down at all the expenses that you pay for, there we are.”
BASIN EVENTS: Oct. 16-24
COLUMBIA BASIN — Whether you feel like shopping, crafting, learning or seeing a show, there’s something happening for you this week in the Basin. Oct. 16 ‘My Family (Mi Familia)’ screening Spanning three generations, “My Family (Mi Familia)” is a heartfelt drama that follows the Sánchez family as they build their lives in East Los Angeles. Through love, hardship, triumph, and sacrifice, the film explores the immigrant experience, the strength of family bonds, and the traditions that connect one generation to the next. Lowrider show and taco truck before the screening. Sponsored by Columbia Basin Allied Arts, EDUBS C/S and the Moses Lake Creative District. $12 per person. Doors open at 6 p.m., film begins at 7 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center Auditorium, 401 S. Balsam St. Tickets and info: www.cba-arts.org.
Moses Lake author encourages women to look beyond church culture norms
MOSES LAKE — A Moses Lake author’s book, “A Christian Woman Striving to Live Her Faith in a Man-Controlled World,” takes aim at the role to which many churches relegate the female half of their congregations. “It’s to encourage women in the faith,” Linda Curran said. “A lot of churches say, ‘Teach Sunday school, do this, do that, but don’t (evangelize.)’" In her book, Curran recounts a time when she moved to a new community and joined a church there. She was surprised to learn that, as a new female member, she had been automatically assigned church cleaning duties. When she questioned it, she wrote, she was met with condescension and her objections were brushed aside. In other churches, she said, women who were capable of teaching were relegated to “women’s ministry.”