BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – Home sales prices in Bellingham rose in the first three months of 2024, while the rest of Whatcom County saw a slightly less pronounced increase.
That’s according to a new report on first quarter home sales from the Muljat Group co-owner Peter Ahn.
The median sales price of a Bellingham home jumped to $780,000, up 20% from a year ago. Home prices in Whatcom County sat at $647,000 in a nearly 11% increase from last year. Ahn said Bellingham’s higher prices might have driven buyers to other communities across the county.
“We’re seeing about a 46% increase for first quarter compared to last year,” Ahn said. “And yet the median sales price is more than $100,000 less than it is in Bellingham. So, people are finding it to be more affordable to live in places like Lynden.”
Average prices in Lynden increased by 14% and home sales shot up by nearly 58% over last year.
There were 441 homes sold in Whatcom County over the first quarter of 2024, which is just over a 4% increase from a year ago. Bellingham saw a nearly 11% decrease in homes sold from last year.
Meanwhile, fewer homes were sold in Skagit County during the first three months of 2024. Ahn said that many homeowners don’t want to sell in fear of losing their low mortgage rates.
“That just becomes a challenge with the inventory in general – with where the rates were a couple years back and where they are today,” Ahn said. “That limits what we might see on the market and people might have less of a tendency to move.”
Only 222 homes sold in Skagit County during the first quarter, marking a 17.5% drop from the same time last year.
Mount Vernon took the least amount of sales damage, with just a 2.4% drop in total homes sold between the first quarters of 2023 and 2024.
The low housing supply is also driving up prices in most parts of the county, with one exception. Ahn said that normally strong Anacortes housing market saw their median home price drop by 12.3%.
“Anacortes is a pretty small town, right? So when impacts such as we’re dealing with the increase in rates, we’re going to see it impact towns or areas like Anacortes more than others,” Ahn said.
Only 38 homes were sold between January and March in Anacortes – that’s just over a quarter less than the number of homes sold at the start of 2023.
