Tri-Cities single-family home sales rose 5.7% in 2025 while the region’s median price climbed 4.1%. Those headline numbers tell a story of steady forward motion on a nine-county regional basis. But the more revealing narrative is how buyers paid for their homes and what those financing patterns say about the structure of demand.

The 2025 financing mix shows a market that expanded its base. Cash buyers remained influential, but financed buyers – especially FHA and VA – gained incremental ground.

The market displayed three defining characteristics in 2025:

1. Broader Participation – Slightly less cash dominance and increased FHA and VA activity point to wider buyer inclusion.
2. Distributed Appreciation – Price growth occurred across all financing types, not just the upper tiers.
3. Balanced Negotiation – Modestly wider sale-to-list gaps.

Cash Sales – Not Expanding
Cash transactions slipped from 28.9% of all sales in 2024 to 27.28% in 2025. They are now sharing the market with more financed buyers.

Conventional Loans – The Anchor
Conventional financing dipped slightly from 46.1% to 45.38%, but it remains the backbone of the region’s housing economy. This segment continues to represent middle-income and move-up households.

FHA – Growing Entry-Level Momentum
FHA loans rose from 13.1% to 14.42% of all transactions. That increase points to stronger participation among first-time buyers and moderate-income households. It also suggests that affordability pressures did not push these buyers out of the market.

VA – Steady Expansion in the Mid-to-Upper Tier
VA financing grew from 8.9% to 9.9%. This segment’s growth often reflects stable employment and reliable benefit utilization.

USDA and THDA – Small but Structural
These programs remain niche, but their steadiness is meaningful. They support rural and first-time buyers who might otherwise be sidelined.

Discounts

Higher-priced and equity-heavy segments – cash, conventional, and VA – showed larger discounts than the year before. Entry-level financing, particularly FHA, saw discounts narrow, implying steady competition in the affordable tier. Programs such as USDA and THDA moved from occasional above-list sales in 2024 to small concessions in 2025, another sign of normalization rather than weakness.

In practical terms, sellers continued to achieve appreciation, but buyers gained more room to negotiate. Average difference between the listing and sales price for the major financing types was:

• Cash – down $13,183
• Conventional – down $10,115
• FHA – down $1,33
• THDA – down 435
• USDA – down $6,266
• VA – down $5,917