KIRKLAND — The prospects for home buyers in Washington are looking up, according to data released last week by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which tracks real estate trends in 27 Washington counties. 

The average 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate was 6.17% at the end of October, the lowest it’s been in more than a year, according to Freddie Mac. On Wednesday, it had risen slightly to 6.22%, still lower than any point since September 2024. At the same time, active listings are up 27% statewide between October 2024 and October 2025, according to the NWMLS data. The average months of inventory, or the amount of time it would take to sell all homes on the market, was up 32% year-over-year statewide to 3.02. Grant and Adams counties held steady at 4.8 and 8.7 months of inventory, respectively. 

That combination gives buyers a little more freedom to pick and choose, Quincy Realtor Tom Parrish told the Columbia Basin Herald in October. 

“If you have three to four months of inventory for people to look at, that means they've got more choices and then they're going to have the ability then to make an offer and have that offer accepted and not have to feel that they're out of the game,” Parrish said. 

Active listings increased in Grant County by 23% between October 2024 and October 2025, according to the NWMLS data. Adams County’s active listings were up 17%. 

The increase was most noticeable in the area of Grant County east of Moses Lake, including Wheeler, Ruff, Warden and the MarDon area, where active listings more than doubled from a year earlier. 

Closed sales dropped statewide by 4% year-over-year, according to the NWMLS data, but in Grant County, the figure was up by 24.3%. Closed sales in Adams County dropped from 12 in October 2024 to 10 in October 2025.

Median home prices dropped in Adams County by 14% year-over-year to $317,740, according to the NWMLS data. Grant County’s median home price shows a slight increase, 3.7%, to $354,308. The median home price statewide was $640,000, a decrease of 1.5%. 

Despite the positive moves, the long-term picture for potential home buyers isn’t necessarily rosier, Steven Bourassa, Director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington, wrote in the NWMLS release. 

“The year-over-year numbers suggest that potential buyers continue to be constrained by high interest rates,” Bourassa wrote. “While it might be tempting, it would be overreaching to attribute the latest month-over-month changes to lower interest rates. One month of data does not constitute a trend, and it is very difficult to predict whether the current moderating trend will continue.”