Tri-City home sales are up. And so are the prices

Tri-Cities home sales are on track to be the highest in two years.

And the prices are climbing even steeper.

For the first time, the median price of Tri-Cities homes jumped above $300,000.

In all, about 4,000 homes sold last year, with more sales pending in late December, according to the latest figures released by the Tri-Cities Association of Realtors.

That was about 70 more than in 2018, said John Keltch, Tri-Cities Association of Realtors president.

The sale of existing homes accounted for nearly 75 percent of last year’s sales, a slight drop from the year before.

That meant a greater percentage were new construction.

“The increase has been attributed to the availability of more developed land to build on. We are expecting even more to be available in 2020,” Keltch told the Herald.

In 2019, an average of 378 homes sold each month, compared with 369 per month in 2018.

Home prices climb

But the biggest difference in 2019 was the cost of the houses.

The average price of the houses sold was $323,400.

Home buyers on average paid nearly $24,700 more this year — or 9.2% bump over 2018.

And buyers were paying more than 20% more on average than two years ago, or $54,200.

“There are always more buyers below the median sale price than above, and that is what is driving the increase in pricing,” said Keltch, with Windermere Group One.

But while the sale of newly built homes increased, the average and median prices of new houses stayed static, he noted.

The median price of new and existing Tri-Cities homes combined rose from $279,000 to $301,325 last year.

The median price for an existing home was $282,500 and a new home was $358,700.

The association’s numbers show that despite the uptick in sales, the average number of homes listed for sale has been steady.

“We have had a consistent inventory of around 600 houses for sale throughout the year. It has fluctuated slightly, maybe 50 or 60, up or down depending on the time of year and what mortgage rates are doing,” said Keltch.

The average was 537 listings a month in 2017 and 578 homes a month in 2018.

2020 home sales outlook

This year, Ketch expects a growing number of new homes because of more available land and commercial money to finance construction.

“Increases to mortgage loan limits and low interest rates, will increase affordability for new construction,” he said.

And he said the resale of existing homes will continue to drive the market, “as you would expect when it is consistently over 70% of the overall market,” he said.

He said 2020 will be a great year for people considering selling their homes. “But don’t be greedy, you will be disappointed in time and the final sale price,” he said.

And people wanting to buy should do their homework, including checking with mortgage lenders and knowing what they can afford before calling a real estate agent and starting shopping, said Keltch.

Nationwide, U.S. sales of newly built homes increased 1.3% in November from the prior month, a sign that low mortgage rates are pushing up purchases as well as prices, said the Association Press.

New single-family home sales surged in the Northeast and West, but they were flat in the Midwest and fell in the South, said the report.

New home sales increased 9.8% through November.

The increase mostly reflected a steady decline in mortgage rates, which made borrowing cheaper and brought more people wanting to trade their current home for a newer one into the market. The typical 30-year mortgage rate fell from about 4.9% a year ago to 3.8% in November.

But prices rose as construction lagged demand, said AP. The median new home sales price was $330,800, up 7.3% from a year ago.