The last two years have been banner years for the Yakima real estate market with increases in just about every category.

Bemis knew the Yakima real estate market would be on fire again this year

Cory Bemis owner of Yakima's John L. Scott Real Estate released his 2022 housing forecast in December of last year Bemis saying while he expects interest rates to rise this year they'll still be historically low giving more people an opportunity to become homeowners. "Past 30-year fixed loan interest rates have been six, seven, eight percent or higher. Even rates above 3% are incredibly competitive compared to the last five years and even the last five decades!"

Sales are expected to be on fire this year and they're already hot

And even though it's still winter sales are still hot in the market. Bemis says the 2022 Median Home Sales Price in January was $320,000. That's a 3% increase from last year to date when the median price was $310,000.
A lot of people moved into new homes in January. There were 171 total homes sold in January of 2022 which is a 48% increase from the 115 homes that sold in January of 2021.
Bemis says 30-year fixed rate mortgages are averaging a 3.9% interest rate right now according to MortgageNewsDaily.com.  That's 0.4% higher rate than 1 month ago, and 1.05% higher than 1 year ago. If last year and the year before were any indications the market will continue to see record sales and growth in 2022.

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LOOK: Here are the best lake towns to live in

Many of the included towns jump out at the casual observer as popular summer-rental spots--the Ozarks' Branson, Missouri, or Arizona's Lake Havasu--it might surprise you to dive deeper into some quality-of-life offerings beyond the beach and vacation homes. You'll likely pick up some knowledge from a wide range of Americana: one of the last remaining 1950s-style drive-ins in the Midwest; a Florida town that started as a Civil War veteran retirement area; an island boasting some of the country's top public schools and wealth-earners right in the middle of a lake between Seattle and Bellevue; and even a California town containing much more than Johnny Cash's prison blues.

LOOK: Here are the 50 best beach towns in America

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

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