The typical starter home in the Tri-Cities costs about $375,000 as of June 2026. But most first-time home buyers will find that expected costs will depend on what they want and need from their first home. The good news is that the inventory of homes for sale is high right now, so there are a lot of homes from which to choose.
Hi, I'm Cari McGee. I've helped countless first-time buyers get into their starter home (here's one recent case study), and I'd be happy to help you, too. In this article, we'll look at what's for sale right now to give you an idea what to expect to spend -- but first, we need to get on the same page about what counts as a "starter home."
What's a "Starter Home"?
If you ask 10 people that question, you'll probably get 10 different answers. But before we can talk about what one costs, we have to define it.
For some people, it's defined by the size/square footage of the home. For others, it might be the type of home -- i.e., a condo or townhouse is a starter home. Maybe it's the features/amenities, as in a starter home is one with a certain number of bedrooms or bathrooms.
And then there's price, which is generally how the real estate industry defines a starter home. In 2025, Realtor.com said a starter home is one that's priced in the lowest 25th percentile of available homes. This year, Zillow used the lowest 33rd percentile.
So for the purposes of this article, we'll use price, too. And we'll stick with the more recent qualifier: homes priced in the lowest 33rd percentile.
Starter Home Prices in the Tri-Cities
As of this afternoon (June 17, 2026), there are 1,130 homes for sale in the Tri-Cities.* This includes single-family homes, condos, townhomes, and manufactured homes. Using the 33rd percentile as our guide, that makes starter homes the least expensive 377 homes.
The 377th least-expensive home is a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 2-car garage home in Richland with an asking price of $430,000. There are a couple other homes also priced at $430,000, so we'll include them in our starter home group -- bringing us to a total of 379 homes that represent the lowest-priced 33% of homes for sale right now.
Here are the prices for that group of starter homes:
- Median list price: $375,850
- Average list price: $330,903
So that's the answer to what does a starter home cost right now in the Tri-Cities. It's in the neighborhood of $330,000 to $375,000. The high end of Tri-Cities starter homes is $430,000, and the low end are some manufactured homes priced below $50,000. (The least expensive right now is a West Richland manufactured home asking $30,000.)
Starter Home Characteristics
Based on an analysis of the full list of 379 homes, here are some other interesting characteristics that will help us understand what a typical starter home "looks" like.
Where are they located?
Kennewick has the most starter homes -- almost double the number you'll find in Pasco or Richland.
- Kennewick: 159
- Pasco: 81
- Richland: 81
- West Richland: 32
- Benton City: 23
- Burbank: 3
How big are they?
Here are medians for square footage and beds/baths:
- Square footage: 1,408
- Bedrooms: 3
- Bathrooms: 2
What about garages?
Here's the count of how many homes in this group have garages/carports and their sizes:
- Two-car: 179
- One-car: 79
- None: 77
- Carport: 36
- Three-car: 8
Here's the typical Tri-Cities starter home
So when you put all this data together, using the lowest-priced 33rd percentile of homes for sale right now, the typical (or "median") Tri-Cities starter home looks like this:
- Bedrooms: 3
- Bathrooms: 2
- Garage: 2-car
- Square feet: 1,408
- City: Kennewick
- Price: $375,850
The size of a typical starter home probably hasn't changed in a while, but certainly the price has. Tri-Cities home prices rose substantially during the COVID pandemic, as did the cost of building new homes.
Shopping for a Starter Home?
Here are a couple links to get you started:
- Tri-Cities WA Homes for Sale - $300,000 and below
- Tri-Cities WA Homes for Sale - $300,000 to $400,000
Final Note
I checked what it would look like if we used the lowest 25% of homes instead of lowest 33%. There are 283 homes in that group. They have an average asking price of $300,956 and a median of $350,000. I think that supports what I said at the start of this article -- to a degree, the affordability of a starter home depends on how you define it.
-Cari
(Reminder: Our "Tri-Cities" includes only Kennewick, Pasco, Richland, West Richland, Benton City, and Burbank -- i.e., the immediate area. Most agents get their data from our local Realtors' Assn., which also includes further away towns like Basin City, Connell, Eltopia, Kahlotus, Mesa, and others.)
