Homes for sale in Clark County sitting on marketSubscriber Exclusive

Clark County’s busy spring real estate season is slowing as usual this summer, but houses are sitting on the market longer. Homes have been on the market for an average of 75 days since the beginning of the year. “It’s gone from a seller’s market to trending to a buyer’s market,” said Terry Wollam, managing broker at Wollam & Associates. Much of the area’s residential real estate activity happens between March and April and sales start to slow by June, Wollam said. This June’s drop in sales, however, may be reflective of mortgage rates, Wollam said. Rates are up about half a percent compared with earlier this year. “We have seen activity pick up and slow down with even small adjustments in interest rates — and small being something, you know, under a quarter of a point,” he said. And with gas prices driving up inflation, Wollam fears relief might not be on the horizon. The latest Regional Multiple Listing Service report for Southwest Washington showed pending sales fell 2.7 percent in June, compared with June 2025. And they decreased 8.4 percent from May 2026. Inventory dropped slightly in June to 3.2 months, compared with May. (The metric tracks how long it would take to sell all the houses currently on the market at their current price.) Homes spent an average of 12 more days on the market compared with June 2025. The median sale price in Clark County was $570,000 in June, down from $574,900 in June 2025. The median sale price so far this year in Clark County is $554,700 — slightly higher than the $549,900 median through the same period of time last year. The big picture Nadia Evangelou, the principal economist and director of real estate research for the National Association of Realtors, said the national housing market is gradually improving. “We are seeing more homes coming onto the market, even though it’s down slightly from a year ago,” she said. Inventory nationally is 40 percent higher than it was during the post-pandemic era housing crunch but still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels. Inventory in Clark County, too, is up significantly compared with the pandemic years. Housing prices are continuing to rise nationally, although they’re not rising as quickly as income, Evangelou said. And while mortgage rates are rising in 2026, they are still slightly lower than they have been the past few years. Taken together, those two indicators mean homes are becoming more affordable. But even improved mortgage rates are still high enough to keep many buyers on the sidelines, Evangelou said. Homes in the Portland metro area are still less affordable than they are nationwide, she added. The average family can’t quite qualify to buy the typical median-priced home. “Housing is one of the most interest rate-sensitive sectors of the economy,” she said. Even small changes in mortgage rates can impact buyers’ choices. Falling mortgage rates also unleash a whole new segment of buyers. Evangelou said when rates fall from 7 percent to 6 percent in the Portland metro area, the number of buyers who can afford to get a home rises by nearly 50,000. Wollam said Clark County has a lot of pent-up demand for housing, pointing to more people living with roommates or family. “People are getting as creative as they ever have been to make it work today, just because cost of living is high and so it’s kind of forcing people,” he said. And builders are still offering incentives to homebuyers, a sign they’re still trying to get more people in the market. Wollam expects real estate activity would increase if interest rates provided some relief.

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