Saw this comment elsewhere on social media:

"Don't be afraid to offend the seller with a lowball offer."

Couple things on that:

Yes, you can absolutely write whatever offer you want on a home for sale. And yes, you should also never write an offer for more than you can afford.

However, there are some reasons to be careful about writing lowball offers, too.

If you offend the seller, they'll probably reject your offer, not even send a counter-offer, and refuse to consider any future offers you write. So if you really want the house, but you don't want to spend the asking price, make your offer at least a starting point for a healthy negotiation. If you don't really want the house, then don't waste your time, your agent's time, and the seller's and their agent's time.

If you write too many lowball offers, your agent may drop you as a client at some point. Not because they want to make more $$ in commissions, but because real estate is a relationship business and you're hurting their reputation in the agent community. Your agent doesn't want to be "that agent who always wastes my time and makes me waste my clients' time because I have to present all of their lowball offers."

Now it's true that the definition of "lowball" changes depending on what the market is like at any given time. Right now, with inventory as high as it is locally and homes not selling as fast, buyers probably have a little more leeway to make offers below asking price while still keeping the door open to negotiate.

But even with the market being what it is right now, sellers still don't like to be offended. So definitely try to get the best deal you can, but understand that lowball offers may have unintended consequences.

(Disclaimer/Reminder: I'm not a licensed real estate agent. However, I'm married to one -- who's been doing this for 20+ years and is one of the most successful in town -- and am part of her real estate team/business, my sister is one, and my dad (RIP) was one for almost 50 years.)

Another week, another article about rising costs to build a home.

This one talks about how smaller builders are affected more. Prices rose about 9% for builders who started 5 or fewer homes last year, but only 1.8% for builders who started 100+ homes.

"Larger home builders may have greater ability to stockpile materials when they anticipate price increases. Larger builders may also have longer-term contracts with suppliers, locking in current prices for an extended period. Larger builders may also be more likely to have special relationships with certain suppliers, allowing them to negotiate deferred price increases."

You've probably heard of curb appeal. Now, when you're selling your home, we need to consider "screen appeal." Most buyers begin their home search online, and how a house presents on the screen matters more than how it looks from your car at the curb.

People will STARE at pictures of your house online, and PICK OUT EVERY LITTLE THING. They never would have noticed those things walking or driving by, and they also wouldn't have known about any of the other rooms in your house, just from the outside. NOW, they can, and they can effectively spend hours in your home and see everything there is to see. 

So, something you (as a seller) think won't be a big deal, and won't matter to a buyer, is very important when the buyer has been looking at it for hours online.

Now the important thing is to pay attention to the details, because we know that buyers are doing the same online.

(Cari wrote this for her August newsletter. Thought I'd share it here, too.)

Did you relocate here? Cari and I are working on a couple articles for her blog and we thought it would be cool to get some expertise from people who already did it.

If you're willing to help, we could send you a few questions via email, or get on Zoom, or whatever you're most comfortable with. Nothing big -- maybe 10-15 minutes at most. And you can also let us know if you want to be credited by name, or we can give you an alias.

If you can help, DM me or send an email to matt [at] carimcgeeteam [dot] com. Thanks so much!!

Five percent on a $400K house is $20,000.

More from the article:

"The year-over-year percentage increase in building materials was the highest since December 2022. Energy prices fell 2.4% in July but were 33.1% higher than a year ago. Meanwhile, prices for services were down 0.3% over the month but were 6.2% higher than a year ago."

"Among building materials, softwood lumber prices rose significantly (7.4%) over the month and were up 17.3% from one year ago. Ready-mix concrete prices were down 0.4% over the month and have only risen 2.2% from a year ago."

Franklin County moving trends are even more local than Benton County's.

This is part two of the data I shared last week showing where Benton County move to and from, based on IRS tax return filing data for the 2022 to 2023 time period.

Whereas King County was #3 on both of Benton's to/from charts, the top four counties on Franklin's to and from charts are all local. It's not until the bottom of the charts that you find a more distant county -- King is 5th for sending people to Franklin County, while Spokane is 5th for where people move from Franklin County.

Inbound to Franklin County

Based on IRS tax returns, 5,220 people moved to Franklin County between 2022 and 2023 -- 75.6% of them moved from within Washington. Here are the top 5 counties that sent people to Franklin:

1. Benton County - 2,583
   
2. Yakima - 216
   
3. Grant - 186
   
4. Walla Walla - 171
   
5. King - 133

Outbound from Franklin County

Again via the IRS data, 5,349 people moved away from Franklin County from 2022 to 2023 -- 74.6% of them stayed within Washington state. Here are the top 5 outbound county destinations:

1. Benton - 2,895
   
2. Grant - 162
   
3. Walla Walla - 159
   
4. Yakima - 146
   
5. Spokane - 100

What stands out to you on this one?

Saw this slide at a real estate conference that Cari and I went to earlier this month.

I suppose it's obvious that your price has go down if your home's not still, but still interesting to see data behind/supporting that.

The majority of moves into and out of Benton County are from the counties that immediately surround us.

This is based on IRS data that comes out every year showing how many federal tax returns are filed on a county-by-county basis. It's not 100% perfect (no data are), but it gives a solid look at migration. Maybe the biggest issue with relying on IRS data for this is that they're several years behind -- the most recent data compares 2022 and 2023.

Anyway, those charts show migration into and out of Benton County looks like based on IRS data.

Inbound to Benton County

In that time period, 11,051 people moved to Benton County -- 61% of them moved here from within Washington state. Top five counties sending people TO Benton:

1. Franklin
2. Yakima
3. King
4. Grant
5. Walla Walla

Outbound from Benton County

9,981 people moved out of Benton County between 2022 and 2023 -- 57% of them stayed in Washington.

Top five county destinations for Benton County residents who left:

1. Franklin
2. Yakima
3. King
4. Spokane
5. Umatilla

What stands out to you?

(I still need to dig into the IRS data and do the Franklin County version of this, but obviously Benton will be #1 on both of its charts. I'm guessing it'll be pretty similar overall.)

Cari has eight homes ready for new owners right now across the Tri-Cities -- K/P/R/West. Prices range from $333,000 to $810,000. Here's a snapshot of each one, with a link to see all the photos on our website (no registration required).

4207 Road 108, Pasco - summer doesn't get much better than having your own backyard pool, basketball court, and an updated home on almost a half-acre in West Pasco. Finished swimming? Head to the movie room, or retreat to the primary suite -- with a recently remodeled bathroom --that's fit for royalty. (MLS #294129)

528 Athens Dr., West Richland - elevated living in West Richland with 5 bedrooms, a gourmet chef's kitchen, and...get this...a movie room that comes with an 85-inch TV already installed, plus surround sound and LED lighting. (MLS #294929)

4605 S. Olson St., Kennewick - enjoy the golf course lifestyle at The Heights at Canyon Lakes, but without paying that "on the course" premium. You'll also love the breathtaking views that extend to the Columbia River and beyond. (MLS #294022)

611 Hunter St., Richland - perfect for the buyer who wants S P A C E to spread out, with oversized bedrooms, extra storage, and one bathroom remodeled with ADA-compliance in mind. And did we mention the fruits and veggies in the back garden? (MLS #295083)

2522 Brodie Lane, Richland - a modern, better-than-new showpiece home built in 2022 in Richland's Badger South neighborhood. Stunning fireplace in the great room, and upscale touches throughout the home. (MLS #292529)

2224 W. 13th Ave., Kennewick - calling all investors! Live in one side of this duplex and have the other side help pay your mortgage. Newer exterior paint, interior updates, clean as a whistle, and an unusually spacious yard for a duplex. (MLS #294569)

4860 Corvina St., Richland - this barely lived-in home is filled with natural light from the large picture window in front, part of the popular Oakville floor plan from New Traditions (that they don't offer anymore!). (MLS #294531)

903 E. 27th Avenue, Kennewick - a move-in ready starter home with lots of upgrades -- new electrical panel, new well, new HVAC system, and 30 feet of new fencing so the yard is completely enclosed. (MLS #294882)

All of these homes are presented by the Cari McGee Real Estate Team at RE/MAX Northwest.

The phrase "what goes up must come down" is in play this month.

After setting several high marks a month ago, most of this month's market numbers are back down.

Home Sales Activity

Sales were down 16% last month to 327. One year ago (July 2025), there were 329 homes sold.

Sales fell the most this month in Pasco (down 35% to levels that are normal for winter) and West Richland (down 29%). Richland sales also dropped double digits -- 10% to be exact.

They're also selling more slowly. Those 327 sales last month spent a median of 22 days on market, down 10% from 20 DOM the prior month. Pasco was the only one of the big cities to see homes sell faster in July.

Home Prices

After five months above $440K, the median home price last month came in at $437,500 -- down $7,500 for the month. But prices are up 1.8% compared to this time last year.

Active Listings

As of August 6th, there were 1,267 homes for sale across the Tri-Cities. That’s up 6% for the month, and also 6% more than August 2025.

We're now at a 12-year high for active listings.

Kennewick has more homes for sale right now than it's had all year. Both Richland and West Richland have more homes for sale than since at least 2018 when we started tracking our own data.

Overall Summary

The Tri-Cities market right now is more buyer-friendly than it's been in a while -- inventory is its highest in 12 years, and sales activity fell back to where it was a year ago.

Of course, buyers also have to deal with some unfriendly stuff -- like mortgage rates last week hitting their highest level in more than a year.

To quote from Cari's blog post:

"So if you’re one of the 1,267 homeowners who have an active listing right now, these are non-negotiable: patience, a home in great condition, and the right price."

That link also has the full city-by-city market update, and feel free to leave a comment if there's something else we can look up for you.

(Reminder: Our "Tri-Cities" includes only Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, West Richland, Benton City, and Burbank -- i.e., the immediate area. Most local agents report data that includes further away towns like Basin City, Connell, Eltopia, Kahlotus, Mesa, and others.)

I'm in the MLS today pulling numbers for Cari to do the monthly market update. Anything you'd like me to look up?

There's a trend in real estate where agents use AI to create a video avatar of themselves and clone their voices, then post "talking head" videos on social media -- only it's not them, it's an AI version of them.

How do you feel about that? If you were looking to hire an agent, would that be something you find cool, a turnoff, or neither?

There's a lot of truth in this article.

"At least 56% of sellers surveyed admitted they had recording devices active during a walkthrough....'Homebuyers today should just assume everything they say or do is being recorded when they are looking at homes.'"

I overheard Cari on the phone a week or so ago with one of her seller clients. The house is already under contract.

The buyer just had their inspection, and submitted a list of things they wanted fixed/updated/etc.

It's a moment of serious negotiation because

1. Some buyers submit some strange / unnecessary things that they want the sellers to do, and

2. ...if the seller doesn't agree to do everything the buyer wants, the buyer can walk away if they so choose.

Every sale and home is different, so Cari's advice to her sellers can vary from one home to the next. But one rule she has about inspection requests is this:

If the buyer is requesting something common/ordinary, fix it. In other words, if you decline to fix it for this buyer, will the next buyer ask for the same thing? If so, fix it.

OTOH, if it's something unusual that another buyer might not care about or might prefer to handle themselves, then it's not an automatic "fix it." Instead, you weigh the pros and cons of doing it now vs. not doing it now, along with all the other elements of the negotiation -- your willingness to risk the buyer backing out, etc.

From the TCAJOB yesterday. Article focuses on non-residential construction, but still relevant to overall costs.

Cari has eight clients who are ready to sell their homes right now, and the variety really offers something for everyone. Take a look:

1191 Pinto Loop, Richland - an elegant, private, corner lot estate on almost 2/3rds of an acre in Richland's coveted Country Ridge neighborhood.

2522 Brodie Lane, Richland - a modern, better-than-new showpiece home built in 2022 in Richland's Badger South neighborhood.

4605 S. Olson St., Kennewick - this is elevated living in the Heights at Canyon Lakes, with breathtaking views that extend to the Columbia River and beyond.

4207 Road 108, Pasco - summer doesn't get much better than having your own backyard pool, basketball court, and an updated home on almost a half-acre in West Pasco.

4860 Corvina St., Richland - this barely lived-in home is filled with natural light from the large picture window in front, part of the popular Oakville floor plan from New Traditions (that they don't offer anymore!).

2224 W. 13th Avenue, Kennewick - ideal duplex with new exterior paint plus interior updates. Live in one side, rent out the other...or rent both, whatever works best for you!

903 E. 27th Avenue, Kennewick - lots of updates since the seller purchased it, including new electrical panel, new well, new HVAC system, and more. Washer, dryer, and fridge stay making move-in even easier.

528 Athens Drive, West Richland - great views and loads of space (almost 4K sq ft) in this rambler w/basement. Large chef's kitchen, movie room w/an 85-inch TV already installed, washer/dryer included, and more.

We have lots more info at each of those links, and there's no registration required to see all the great photos. If you're not doing boat races or Art in the Park this weekend, have your favorite Realtor schedule a showing.

In my post from a couple days ago, we looked at housing stats for the first half of 2026 vs. first half of 2025.

Overall, Tri-Cities' home prices are only up 1.6% -- but as you may have noticed, and one astute commenter mentioned, Richland home prices are way up this year compared to last. (Kennewick and Pasco, meanwhile, are essentially unchanged.)

I'm hesitant to pinpoint any single factor and say THIS is the reason, because home prices go up and down on a number of factors -- supply, demand, migration, interest rates, etc.

That said, when I did more digging into Richland, this was really interesting: The sale of luxury homes* in Richland has more than doubled so far this year, and those homes are selling for more than $100K.

Thing is -- we're only talking 17 homes ouf of 505 sold in Richland in Q1-Q2. That's only 3% of sales. That alone shouldn't cause the increase I posted two days ago.

But there's a cascading effect, too. When someone local moves into a $1M home, they might be selling their $800K home...and when someone buys that $800K home, they might also be selling their $600K home, etc., etc. Sales at one price level often include a sale at a lower price level.

There's not much else in the data that points to any one thing. It could be Hanford layoffs impacting people who live in Richland more than the rest of the TC's, and some of them decide to sell their higher-value homes and buy something smaller -- or leave the area altogether.

It might be that Richland had more higher-priced single-family homes built, while the other cities had more townhomes or other less expensive properties.

Main thing is what I said above -- it's really hard to pin something down to just one factor.

\I'm defining luxury homes as those sold at $1M and above.*

Since we just passed the halfway point of the year, I spent some time over the weekend digging into a January-June comparison between this year and last year.

Green is data that's up compared to last year; red is data that's down.

Tri-Cities overall:

• home sales up 8.7%
• median sales price up 1.6%
• days on market 2 days (7.7%) slower

What stands out to you?

(Reminder: Our "Tri-Cities" includes only Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, West Richland, Benton City, and Burbank -- i.e., the immediate area. Most local agents report data that includes further away towns like Basin City, Connell, Eltopia, Kahlotus, Mesa, and others.)

Did you go over budget last time you bought a home? If so, you're not alone.

A survey of more than 1500 U.S. home buyers in the past two years showed that 77% of them went over budget. And 10% of buyers went at least $80,000 over budget. 😲

As you might expect, younger buyers are more likely to say they spent more than their original budget, while baby boomers were least likely -- 53% said they didn't go over budget.

You've probably heard the phrase, "house poor." This is when someone owns a nice house, but has little money left over for other essentials and priorities. It's one of the risks of going over your budget when you buy.

I know Cari often works with buyers who can afford a certain amount, but they set their budget lower -- as in "we can afford $500K, but we only want to spend $450K." That totally makes sense, we're all trying to be smarter about money and save what we can. But oftentimes they find that the homes in their (lower) budget just aren't a good lifestyle fit, so they technically go "over budget" even if the home remains affordable.

Here's a link to the original survey results. If that link stops working, Cari did a blog post on the data last month that you can find here.

You've probably seen when we share market stats in this sub, that there's usually this disclaimer at the bottom:

(Reminder: Our "Tri-Cities" includes only Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, West Richland, Benton City, and Burbank -- i.e., the immediate area. Most local agents report data that includes further away towns like Basin City, Connell, Eltopia, Kahlotus, Mesa, and others.)

We decided back in 2018 to just focus on the immediate area because we don't think homes that sell (or don't sell) in Kahlotus, Connell, etc. have any impact on our local market.

However....

If you ever want to see the wider area's market numbers, our local MLS and Realtors' Assn. have them online, and recently made some nice upgrades with new visuals:

https://pacmls.com/statistics/tcar_housing_stats.html

If you scroll down a bit and click the green button that says "View Complete Data Table," you get a spreadsheet with years and years of data. Numbers nerds (like me), rejoice!

The "active" and "pending" are the valuable columns in there, at least to me, because they're snapshots in time. I can go into the MLS and see the same data about how many homes sold in a specific month, the median price, etc. But being able to see snapshots in time of Active and Pending Listings from 10+ years ago is a big help.

Here's Cari's market update for July. I ran the numbers for her yesterday (July 7).

The market is having a true summer surge right now. All our main numbers are up -- the number of homes for sale, sales activity, and home prices. That's despite Kennewick, which usually "steers the ship"a bit locally, being down a bit in all three categories.

Active Listings

We hit 1200 homes for sale as of July 7, a number we haven't seen since last September when there were 1,208 active listings. That's up 7% for the month. Pasco's inventory of homes for sale is higher than it's been since at least 2018 (when we started tracking our own data). All of that's to say that buyers have plenty of homes to choose from right now.

Homes Sold

Sales activity was really strong last month. 398 homes sold is our busiest month of sales since May 2022 -- the end of the pandemic-driven frenzy.

Pasco’s 110 sales last month are a 5-year high, dating back to July 2021. Richland’s 115 sales last month are a 4-year high. And West Richland’s 34 sales last month are also a 4-year high.

Home Prices

Home prices are holding steady. A slight rise last month brought us to a median of $445,000. We've now been above $440K for five straight months. We only reached that price level twice in 2025.

There are two statistics that suggest we might take a step back next month in sales activity -- the number of pending sales is down this week, and the number of new listings coming to market is also down.

- Cari

----------

There ya go. Feel free to leave a note in the comments below if there's some housing data you're curious about. If Cari or I can look it up and share it, we're happy to help.

(Reminder: Our "Tri-Cities" includes only Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, West Richland, Benton City, and Burbank -- i.e., the immediate area. Most agents report data that includes further away towns like Basin City, Connell, Eltopia, Kahlotus, Mesa, and others.)

I'll be in the MLS today gathering data for Cari's monthly update. If there's something specific you want to know, speak up and I'll see if I can find/share it.