The real estate forecast is looking great for the Tri Cities Washington area according to Veros Real Estate Solutions, a Santa Ana, California based technology firm. Veros has predicted that 40% of the major metro areas across the nation are expected to see home prices going up.  This forecast issued by Veros utilizes over 50 factors to enable them to produce trustworthy predictions about market trends. Some of the factors used to predict these market trends include unemployment and housing inventory levels.

One of the projected top five strongest markets is our very own Tri Cities Washington. The Tri Cities – Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland – has been predicted to see a 3.4% increase in home prices. According to Eric Fox, Vero’s vice president of…

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What follows is a letter submitted by the Tri Cities Home Builders Association's Reneé Dahlgren to the Pasco City Counsel and the Franklin County Commissioners in opposition to the proposed Pasco School District impact fees. We too are opposed to the idea and HBA's letter sums up our thoughts exactly.

On behalf of the Home Builders Association of Tri-Cities (HBA), I would like to submit our opposition to proposed traffic impact fees suggested by the Pasco School District's Superintendent in the December 2nd article in the Tri-City Herald. First, we fully understand the need for the Pasco School District to find ways to fund their capital projects. Our members don't just build in this community – they live and play here too, and their children attend…

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Over the past several years since the recession hit, Tri Cities Washington has almost seemed as if it’s been in a bubble. This is not to say that the Tri Cities are invincible but the area is undeniably maintaining our strong economy. When compared to this time last year when home sales have gone up nearly 15% to 4,516 sales so far this year compared to the 3,918 home sales at this time last year. Not only are home sales up in the Tri City area but so are single family building permits that are issued. For the third year in a row single family building permits issued in the Tri Cities as of October of this year have increased by about 10%.

Not only are the Tri Cities Washington doing well in the area of Real Estate but the area has also been recognized…

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Recently Garner Economics released a new study on the top metropolitan areas to have experienced employment growth since before the recession. Across the nation about half of the 370+ metropolitan areas are having a difficult time getting their employment back up like it was before the recession began. The Tri City Washington area is not one of those metro areas to be having trouble bouncing back, in fact they are actually ranked number one out of the 372 metro areas. Compared to five years ago the Tri Cities’ employment has increased by 5.4% from its peak employment rate before the recession. This past September employment was up to 102,200 up 5,500 from the previous September.

According to some of our Tri City Development Council representatives,…

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New home sales are not doing too well nationwide but in Tri Cities Washington things are continuing to look up. During the month of September the amount of new homes sold in the Tri Cities was 80, an 8 percent increase from the previous month’s new homes sold. When compared to the new home sales throughout the nation which only rose 6.6 percent up from the 297,000 new homes sold in August, the Tri Cities is doing well. The average price of these new homes nationwide during the month of September was $257,500 a little higher than the Tri Cities average sale price of $252, 034.

Not only is the Tri Cities doing well in new homes sold from month to month, but they are also being recognized nationally on several “Top 10” lists. Just recently the Tri Cities…

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When looking for a place to call home many people look for a city that is great for raising a family. Kiplinger recently released a top 10 list of the greatest American cities for raising a family. In order to make it on the list cities had to have a healthy economy, strong schools, low crime rates, job growth, vibrant local culture, and lots of parks and recreational activities. These are a lot of factors to consider when looking at so many American cities, but they did it and on that list is none other than our local Kennewick Washington.

The city of Kennewick with a population nearing 70,000 is a largely a research based economy, they were able to withstand the recession quite well with only a 6.2% unemployment rate and abounding high-tech jobs in…

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