Thurston housing market ends ’23 with sales dip, flat median price. Will 2024 be different?
Correction: Van Dorm Realty managing broker Steve Pust said recent million dollar home sales have skewed average home prices in Thurston County. He was incorrectly quoted in a story that originally appeared online Dec. 10.
The Thurston County housing market wound down the year with a whimper in December as home sales fell again and the median price of a single-family residence was flat from the same period last year, according to new data released Friday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
The data show that single-family home sales fell 12% to 214 units last month while median price was largely unchanged from December 2022 at $499,925. However, that was down significantly from the November median price of $529,900, the data show.
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Steve Pust, managing broker at Van Dorm Realty in Olympia, offered a note of caution, saying average price numbers have been skewed higher recently because of the number of million-dollar homes that have sold in the county.
“The California exodus is a real thing,” he said about those moving to the area.
Northwest MLS will release the number of million-dollar homes that sold here in 2023 on Jan. 18. In 2022, 130 homes sold for $1 million or more in the county.
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What will 2024 bring?
As for the new year, what will it bring to the county’s housing market?
Mortgage interest rates have tumbled from a previous high of around 8% for a 30-year mortgage to an average of 6.62%, according to Freddie Mac, which tracks rates.
Pust predicts rates will settle in around 6.5% and inventory will improve because there are “pent-up sellers” who know they have to make a move, he said.
Steve Garrett, owner of Windermere Olympia, thinks rates will fall to about 6% and median home price will appreciate 1% over the year. He, too, thinks inventory will improve and that 2024 might be the year new construction gains market share.
There is reason to believe so. Area home builder Rob Rice is building homes at Cain Road and 22nd Avenue in Olympia, D.R. Horton is building homes near North Thurston High School, and Horton is set to embark on Morel Meadows, the new subdivision where Ostrom’s mushroom farm used to be at Marvin Road and Steilacoom Road in Lacey. There also has been interest in building homes on Wiggins Road in Olympia.
Although inventory might improve, it is still very low and has a ways to go to shift the market in favor of the buyer. A market that doesn’t favor either the seller or buyer is thought to have inventory in the range of four to six months. In Thurston County, it was still below two months in December, the data shows.
There is a silver lining for buyers willing to shop for a home in the wider region. There was a four month’s supply of homes in Grays Harbor and Lewis counties in December. And the price just might be right: The median price in Grays Harbor was $299,000, while it was $395,000 in Lewis County.
Thurston County data
▪ Single-family home sales fell 11.9% to 214 units in December 2023 from 243 units in December 2022.
▪ Single-family home median price rose 0.49% to $499,925 from $497,500 over the same period.
▪ Single-family home pending sales rose 8.25% to 223 units from 206 units over the same period.
▪ Condo sales rose to nine units from two units over the same period.
▪ Condo median price fell 13.7% to $274,000 from $317,500 over the same period.
▪ Condo pending sales rose to 18 units from eight units over the same period.
Source: Northwest MLS
This story was originally published January 7, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
