Good news everyone! Affordable housing can be found with just a short three hour drive east of Seattle! Grant County sports housing that is truly affordable, in fact the “most affordable” of all the counties listed by NWMLS.
Thanks to what a real estate research director calls surprisingly low median home prices, the county tops the Northwest Multiple Listing Service in housing affordability.“The prices are lower than in many parts of the state, even though the incomes are fairly average,” explained Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University.
Third quarter data — the most recent information accessible for the center, indicated a median sales price in Grant County of $119, 800, and a median family income of $44,918, Crellin added.
Given that the county is home to Moses Lake (think major aerospace player), but not much else, that doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The B keeps wages up, and the lack of anything interesting keeps housing prices down. Makes sense.
(Matthew Weaver, Columbia Basin Herald, 02.01.2006)

Anonymous » Feb 3, 2006 at 9:32 am
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rms » Feb 5, 2006 at 7:54 am
We moved to Ephrata, WA from California so that my wife could be a stay-home mom. No metal detectors at the public schools here. I landed a reliable $68k/yr job out here; the trouble in these rural areas is finding people with college degrees. New homes go for roughly $80/sqft, and there is plenty of room for growth, so you won’t be taxed out of your home anytime soon. Davenport, WA just got a Cessna Caravan (turbine), so skydiving just got a whole lot better too!
BTW, Microsoft just purchased land in Quincy, WA to be a server farm since the power rates are great, not in an earth quake zone, and there is a fiber optic system in Grant County.