KIRKLAND — Home prices and sales rose steadily in Washington in 2024 even as mortgage interest rates bounced up and down, according to data released by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service on Jan. 17. The NWMLS tracks real estate trends in 26 of Washington’s 39 counties.

The average 30-year home mortgage began the year at 6.62%, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, commonly called Freddie Mac. The rate went to 7.44% in early May, dropped to 6.08% in September and finished the year at 6.85%. As of Jan. 18, 2025, the rate was 7.04%.

Those rates are comparatively recent, according to Freddie Mac’s data, stemming from a drastic jump in 2022 when the rate went from 3.45% in January to 7.08% in September. Interest rates have hovered in the 6-8% range since, frustrating buyers, sellers and real estate agents.

“In 2022 it was strictly a seller’s market,” Quincy real estate agent Tom Parrish told the Columbia Basin Herald in August. “Interest rates were still in that 4-5% (range) and they went up during this last couple of years, for a while even (to) 8% and now (have) come down to the upper sixes, sevens, in that area. That's been a big influence.”

“It’s harder for first-time home buyers because they’re seeing it as high, but if you look at the history, we’re still at a very affordable rate as opposed to 40 years ago,” Moses Lake agent Tami Canfield said in October. Rates were in double digits throughout the 1980s and dipped below the current rate for the first time in 1998, according to Freddie Mac.

Despite buyers’ hesitancy, median home prices were consistently up statewide in 2024 compared to 2023, a 12-month average increase of 6.7%. Prices in the Basin didn’t necessarily follow that trend, however: Adams County homes averaged only 2.38% higher and Grant County 2.99% higher. Home prices in the Cascade Valley and Mae Valley areas of Grant County showed the highest increase at 12.9% and 9.14% respectively, while homes in the Peninsula area of Moses Lake dropped 19.24%.

Active listings also increased statewide in 2024, coming in at 24.33% higher than 2023, according to the NWMLS. Grant County active listings rose by 30.18% overall, with the greatest increases in the rural central and western parts of the county. Active listings in Adams County dropped 4.8%.

The trend appears to be set for the foreseeable future, according to Steven Bourassa, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research (WCRER) at the University of Washington.

“We may well be experiencing the pains of adjusting to a new normal, with persistent interest rates of 6% or higher,” Bourassa wrote in the NWMLS data.