Home prices jump in Bellingham, Whatcom County amid ‘spiking’ mortgage rates
Median home sale prices in Bellingham and Whatcom County rose in March, and Washington remains one of the most expensive states in which to purchase a home.
Whatcom County real estate prices
Whatcom County’s median sale price across all of March was $623,000, a 1.8% increase compared with February and a 4.7% increase compared with the same month last year, according to Jason Lee, a local broker with Windermere Real Estate in Bellingham.
“March was quite a month. Spiking mortgage rates and the landslide on northbound I-5 created stress for both buyers and sellers. Despite those tangible headwinds, (pending sales) trended up all month and were 70% higher than the previous month and on par with a year ago,” Lee told The Herald.
Whatcom County’s median home sale price reached a peak of $662,000 in July 2024, the highest price from 2012-26, according to Redfin Metro Area Data, a residential real estate brokerage that uses home listings to generate metro area data.
Bellingham
Bellingham’s median sale price was $700,000 in March, according to Lee. That’s a 1.9% increase compared with February and a 9.4% increase compared with March 2025, Lee said.
“The higher level of inventory and correlated market speed have stood out to me the most in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. We have 15% more inventory right now than we did in April 2025, and our seasonal real estate market is barely underway. Homes that didn’t sell last year are factoring into our current higher inventory — a whole other sentiment story there,” Lee said.
In February, Bellingham’s median sale price increased to $675,000.
Statewide
Washington’s median home sale price in March was $643,700, a decrease of 0.21% compared to the same month last year, according to Redfin data, and an increase of $18,700 compared to February’s median of $625,000.
Redfin lists Washington as the fifth most expensive state in which to purchase a home in 2025, following California, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Colorado.
Not only does Washington have some of the most expensive home prices, but many residents have also been looking to move out of the state.
“Nationwide, 30% of homebuyers searched to move to a different metro area between Dec ‘25 - Feb ‘26. The top 5 states homebuyers searched to move to were Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina while California, New York, Illinois, Washington, and Maryland were the top 5 states homebuyers searched to move from,” according to Redfin’s U.S. Migration Trends data.
