Is boosting supply the only way to lower housing costs in Thurston? How about these ideas?
A prospective Thurston County home buyer looking for a little price relief did not find it in March, according to Northwest Multiple Listing Service data released this month.
That’s because the median price of a home here rose about 3% to $550,000 between March 2024 and March 2025, the data show.
Why do prices continue to go up? The number of homes on the market remains historically low and there are still buyers in this market and outside it who want to live here.
The common refrain to this situation is to say the supply of homes needs to be increased for prices to moderate. Of course, boosting the inventory of homes in the near term is easier said than done.
But could there be other solutions?
Here are some ideas and legislation that might help.
Rent to own
Olympia City Council was recently briefed on a rent-to-own idea in which landlords might be exempted from a rental registry program if they are willing to enter into rent-to-own agreements with their tenants, The Olympian reported last month.
The details of that approach still need to be worked out, but it’s an idea that city council member Robert Vanderpool supports.
“We have to try a bunch of different ideas,” he said about addressing the state of the housing market, “and until we get there, we have to keep trying.”
Vanderpool speaks from experience. He is a former longtime renter, a new father and a first-time homebuyer, but that purchase would not have been possible if not for the assistance of some inter-generational wealth. In other words, his mother-in-law helped with the purchase in exchange for a place to live, too, he said.
Without that financial assistance, Vanderpool, an elected official and a state worker, would not have been able to buy, he said.
He’s not alone. Among his peers, he knows those with law degrees or graduate school experience and other professionals who cannot afford a home. Some, he said, have chosen to live elsewhere.
Most of all, Vanderpool wants the council to continue to pilot housing ideas that the state might learn about and run with, he said. Some other ideas he shared with The Olympian: co-op housing, the creation of a public developer and the use of land trusts to fill the housing gap.
“We have to try everything,” he said.
Ground leases, land trusts
South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity, the longtime nonprofit home builder for qualifying applicants, announced a partnership with the state Department of Natural Resources last year for a 28-acre site in the Lacey area.
Elizabeth Walker, chief executive of SPS Habitat for Humanity, could not be reached on Thursday for an interview. But the plan, as envisioned, would be to work out a ground lease on the DNR property for a future housing development.
Buying 28 acres would cost the nonprofit millions of dollars, former interim Chief Executive Greg Laura previously told The Olympian, but with a ground lease it’s a much more affordable financial proposition.
Habitat for Humanity also has weighed the possibility of putting a land trust model to work.
Under that model, the organization would own the land, meaning the home appraisal would only take into account the value of the structure, not the value of land and structure, thereby keeping homeowner costs lower, The Olympian reported.
Condo reform
The Seattle Times recently reported about the increasing number of single-family homes in the Seattle area that have more bedrooms than people, the result of older residents aging in place.
While some clearly want to remain in their homes, others could be financially stuck. They may want to downsize and still own their home (to avoid the impact of rising rents on a fixed income), but the inventory of small homes and condominiums is even smaller than that of typical single-family homes.
A wave of new apartments have been developed across the region in response to the need for housing, including in Thurston County, but few if any are for sale. Renting an apartment is not an investment that grows over time or offers tax benefits, such as allowing you to deduct mortgage interest from the taxes.
Two House Bills, 1403 and 1516, might help. They seek to address condominium liability, a reason developers say is a disincentive to building condos. The Washington Realtors support both bills and they explain why.
“New condominium supply in Washington state has been extremely limited due to the state’s condominium liability law,” the website reads. “This law, which is a statutory ‘implied warranty,’ often leaves developers vulnerable to litigation and offers very few incentives to build condominiums in Washington.”
The condo market in Thurston County is tiny compared to that for single-family residences. Nine condos sold in the county last month, compared to 237 single-family homes, the Northwest MLS data show. There also were 364 new single-family listings in March, compared to 29 condos.
The legislation might help that. It would “exempt small condominium buildings and accessory dwelling units converted to condominiums” from the warranty and apply a warranty more commonly used for single-family home construction.
“This concept intends to incentivize middle housing, ADUs, and small in-fill multifamily construction for home ownership, not rentals,” the Realtors say.
Thurston County March housing data
▪ Single-family home sales were essentially flat, falling to 237 units last month from 239 units in March 2024.
▪ Single-family home median price rose 2.8% to $550,000 from $535,000 over the same period.
▪ Single-family home pending sales rose 5.3% to 359 units from 341 units over the same period.
▪ Condo sales fell to nine units from 16 units over the same period.
▪ Condo median price rose 4.3% to $365,000 from $349,950 over the same period.
▪ Condo pending sales fell to 12 units from 17 units.
Source: Northwest MLS.
This story was originally published April 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
