Supply of Thurston County homes for sale rises. What’s the median price?
In some ways, the Thurston County housing market has never been better. In others, it still has a long way to go.
That’s the takeaway from new November housing data released by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which, on the positive side of things, showed that months of inventory in the county rose to nearly three months, a level not seen in many years.
It’s still considered a market that favors sellers over buyers, but it’s moving in the right direction if you’re in the hunt for a house. A market that doesn’t favor either party is thought to have inventory in the range of four to six months.
And yet the median price of a Thurston County home last month was nearly $530,000 and average mortgage interest rates on a 30-year mortgage remain above 6%.
And although inventory is higher, it’s not necessarily because of a wave of new construction, it’s because sales have slowed, the data show.
In fact, of the roughly 3,000 homes that have sold year to date in the county only about 10% account for new construction, said Mitch Dietz, owner of Coldwell Banker Evergreen Olympic Realty of Olympia on Thursday.
Meanwhile, sales fell nearly 3% to 234 units last month from 241 units in November 2024, the data show. More inventory, though, has put buyers in a much better position of late, Dietz said.
Of the transactions in his office last month, 94% of them were at or below list price, compared to just 6% above list price, he said. That is a much better situation than immediately after the pandemic when mortgage interest rates plunged and the housing market took off.
In 2021, 40-70% homes were sold at above list price, and it hit 80% in early 2022, Dietz said.
Still, he acknowledged that the housing market is in a strange place because despite county population growth there has been little sales activity. Dietz thinks there are a lot of potential buyers sitting on the sidelines, possibly waiting for mortgage interest rates and prices to fall.
“It’s just a strange time,” he said.
A closer look at the November data
- Single-family residence sales fell 2.9% to 234 units last month from 241 units in November 2024.
- Single-family median price rose less than 1% to $529,450 from $525,000 over the same period.
- Single-family pending sales rose 7.34% to 278 units from 259 units over the same period.
- Condo sales fell to nine units from 11 units over the same period.
- Condo median price fell 8% to $306,000 from $335,000 over the same period.
- Condo pending sales fell to five units from seven units over the same period.
Source: Northwest MLS
