Interest down, inventory up in Basin housing market
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 months AGO
This house in Moses Lake was listed at $397,000 Wednesday. Median home prices increased slightly in Grant County over the 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. | November 15, 2025 8:05 AM
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.”
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.”