Home market moving, but affordability still iffy
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 6 months AGO
This four-bedroom home in Moses Lake was listed at $589,000 Wednesday. The median price for a home in that area of Grant County was $535,000, an increase of 42.86% from January 2024.
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. | February 14, 2025 3:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — The housing market is moving faster than a year ago in Washington, but affordability is still up in the air, according to data released by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service for January.
Active listings increased 44.6% between January 2024 and January 2025 in the 26 Washington counties covered by the NWMLS data. Grant County had one of the largest rates of increase in the state at 48.8%, but Adams County, with its much smaller population, dipped very slightly.
New listings were up 74.1% in Grant County in January 2025 over January 2024, possibly due to an increase in new construction. The greatest activity in Grant County occurred in the western part of the county, according to the NWMLS data, which includes Quincy, George, Desert Aire and Crescent Bar. New listings in Adams County dropped from 15 to seven in the same period.
“For-sale inventories are continuing to rise from historical lows, and that’s helping bring some life to housing market activity in the NWMLS area,” Selma Hepp, chief economist at CoreLogic, wrote in the NWMLS statement.
However, interest rates remained high as median home prices rose, making homes less generally affordable. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage interest was 6.59% on Wednesday, compared to 6.77% a year earlier and 3.92% this week in 2022. Grant County prices decreased slightly, while Adams County median home prices rose by just over 2%.
“Both prices and interest rates continued to increase, having a negative effect on affordability,” Steven Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington, wrote for NWMLS. “The median price rose by nearly 4% to $615,000, while interest rates rose from 6.69% at the end of January 2024 to 6.95% now.”
The changes in political and economic climate following the November elections may have been a factor, according to Bourassa.
“New immigration policies are expected to have an inflationary impact on home construction costs,” he wrote. “And the National Association of Home Builders has warned that tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico would have a significant impact on materials such as lumber and gypsum, while multiple researchers have documented the possible impact of immigration policy on labor supply for home builders. All of this suggests that the affordability of homeownership, which has been declining, will continue to do so.”
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Quincy National Night Out scales down
QUINCY — Quincy’s National Night Out was more compact this year, which worked out well, said QPD Sgt. Joe Westby, who’s in charge of event planning for the Quincy Police Department. “National Night Out is a big event, and the fact that we’re able to shrink it up is like a breath of fresh air,” Westby said. “If you're always doing the same thing, it's kind of nice to switch things up and see how it works.” National Night Out took place Thursday on the block of C Street next to the police station, a shift from previous years when it was held at Lauzier Park. The smaller space meant fewer emergency vehicles for children to explore, but it also meant less walking for attendees. Grant County Fire District 5 brought a fire truck, and the Grant County Sheriff’s Office had a patrol boat. Renew, the Grant County behavioral health agency, had a booth and so did Quincy Partnership for Youth. Veterans Operation Creation sang the national anthem, and the Quincy Animal Shelter brought kittens that piled over each other making friends with passersby. As before, the QPD served grilled hot dogs.
Quincy Police retirements leave big shoes to fill
QUINCY — There are some big shoes to fill at the Quincy Police Department. “We’re losing 48 years of experience between them,” Quincy Police Chief Ryan Green said at the retirement party for Capt. Jorge Trujillo and Det. Damon Powell Thursday. Trujillo, who grew up in Sunnyside, has been with QPD for 19 years, he said, coming on as a patrol officer fresh out of the military. From there he served as a field training officer, a detective and finally captain. “I consider him my left-hand man,” Green said. “He runs the operations side of the house … He knows the agency very well, and he knows the community.” Trujillo has some projects around the house to tackle now that he’s retired, he said.
Big fun on a small scale
Wheat Land Communities’ Fair opens Thursday
RITZVILLE — The Wheat Land Communities’ Fair isn’t as big or as flashy as some of the county fairs around central Washington, but the folks who keep it going like it just the way it is. “It’s somewhere you can go and get an old-time traditional feeling, and you’re comfortable letting your kids roam the grounds and experience all that it has to offer,” said Board Member Lori Williams. “It’s more of a feeling than (one) specific thing,” The fair starts Thursday in Ritzville and runs through Sunday. Starting Friday, the 56th Ritzville Rodeo will take place alongside the fair at the rodeo grounds. This year the entertainment budget was expanded, Williams said, to be able to offer more fun that’s covered by the cost of admission. For the kids, there’s face painting, balloon art, Lego crafts, races, contests and games. Children can also ride on a little train towed around the fairgrounds behind a tractor.