Kootenai County home prices dip slightly for first time in two years

A $545,000 median single-family home still carries a monthly payment that keeps many Kootenai County buyers on the sidelines, even after prices slipped for the first time in more than two years. With 20% down and a 6.38% mortgage rate, the principal-and-interest payment works out to about $2,721 a month, only about $37 less than the payment on February’s $552,500 median.

That small break is real, but it is also small. The county’s median single-family home price fell 0.2% from a year earlier, the first year-over-year decline since February 2024, when the median dropped 2.3% to $499,500. Prices climbed every month in between before easing in March, after January pushed the median to $562,000, the highest point in more than three years.

The rest of the market still points to tight conditions rather than a broad correction. Through March, 507 homes had sold in Kootenai County. As of April 3, there were 778 active residential listings, down 12.1% from the same point in 2025, and homes were averaging 97 days on market, an 8.5% decline from March 2025. In early March, there were 656 residential listings and 309 homes sold through the first two months of the year, showing that activity picked up but not enough to loosen supply for long.

Mortgage rates remain the biggest counterweight to any price relief. Bankrate’s average 30-year fixed rate was 6.38% in the April 20 update, up from 6.08% in early March. On a $545,000 home, that three-tenths of a point adds about $85 a month to the payment on a 20% down loan. Jared McFarland of Century 21 Beutler and Associates said the market feels more balanced now, but he also said rates below 6% tend to bring in more buyers and rates above that level cool demand.

Jennifer Smock of Windermere/Coeur d’Alene Realty said in early March that stable 6.08% mortgage rates and mild weather were pulling more listings onto the market sooner than usual, with a noticeable uptick in new listings over five days. McFarland expects more homes to come on the market near Memorial Day, but warned that if supply does not increase, stronger demand could push prices back up again.

The affordability gap remains wide. Kootenai County’s median household income was $83,061 in the Census Bureau’s 2024 estimate. At a 30% housing-cost benchmark, that leaves about $2,077 a month for housing, far short of the median home payment even before taxes and insurance. Kiki Miller of the Housing Solutions Partnership has said the gap between what median-income households can afford and the median home price is about $182,000, and that nearly 27,500 additional housing units will be needed by 2030. For now, March looks more like a pause than a turning point.