Home prices up locally, down statewide
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 9 months, 1 week AGO
This home in Moses Lake was listed at $225,000 Wednesday. Home prices dropped this year statewide but rose significantly in Grant and Adams counties.
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. | January 9, 2026 1:20 AM
KIRKLAND — The real estate market in December continued the pattern set in October and November, according to data released this week by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which tracks real estate trends in 27 of Washington’s 39 counties. Active listings were up across Washington compared to December 2024, while prices declined slightly.
Mortgage interest rates ended 2025 at their lowest rate for the year, according to Freddie Mac. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.15%. The high point for 2025 was 7.04%, which was reached in January.
Active listings were 23% higher statewide than in December 2024, according to the NWMLS, but were 24% lower in December than in November 2025. In Grant County, active listings rose by 29.6% between December 2024 and December 2025, but dropped 6.27% from November 2025. Adams County active listings were up by 36.84% year-over-year, but down only 3.6% from November.
Closed sales were up by 4.1% in December 2025 statewide compared to 2024, according to NWMLS data. Grant County’s closed sales rose 10% in the same time period, while Adams County tripled, from four in December 2024 to 12 in December 2025.
Months of inventory, or the amount of time it would take to sell all the homes in a given market, were at 2.3 statewide in December 2025, compared to 2.0 in December 2024. Grant County showed 4.08 months of inventory, a 17.14% increase, while Adams County stood at 4.33 months, a 54.73% drop year-over-year.
Median home prices dropped statewide by about 2% year over year, but rose in the Basin. Grant County’s median home price was $372,495 in December 2025, an increase of 4.46% compared to a year earlier, while Adams County’s median was $379,230, increasing year-over-year by 29.74%.
“Although 30-year mortgage interest rates ended 2025 at their lowest point for the year (6.15%), buyers continued to face significant affordability constraints,” Steven Bourassa, Director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington, wrote in the NWMLS release.
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.”