Buying a Home in the Tri-Cities

How I help you search

Most buyer conversations start with price, beds and baths. Those are the basic filters — but they don't tell me enough by themselves to know which homes will actually fit your life. I'd rather know what your day-to-day should look like once you're in the house — the commute you're willing to drive, newer or established, how much lot you want to maintain, whether a shop or RV parking matters, whether land is part of the plan.

Then we talk budget honestly: not the maximum a lender will approve, but the monthly number you're comfortable living with. Once I understand that, the search narrows fast and you stop touring houses that were never going to work.

If you're still deciding where to look, the Tri-Cities overview compares the areas side by side, and each city has its own guide: Kennewick, Pasco, Richland and West Richland.

And when we're standing in a house, you get my honest read. A home can photograph beautifully and still be a bad purchase. A less exciting listing is sometimes the better opportunity.

Inspection first. Almost every house has findings, and a long report isn't automatically a bad house. What matters is sorting the list into three piles: normal maintenance for a home of that age, items worth negotiating, and anything that genuinely changes whether the deal makes sense. I'm not the inspector — when something is unclear we slow down and bring in the right person, a roofer or HVAC tech or specialist, and get a real cost before responding.

Then the appraisal. Your lender orders it, and the value either supports the contract price or it doesn't. If it's going to be tight, you'll usually hear that from me before the report lands, along with the options.

Financing runs alongside it. Underwriting will ask for documents, sometimes twice. Getting those back quickly is the single easiest thing you can do to protect the closing date.

Then closing. Final walkthrough, signing, recording, and possession per the contract. I'd rather over-communicate through this stretch than have you wondering where things stand — and I'm still reachable after the keys change hands.

Transactions rarely go perfectly. Inspections turn up something nobody expected, appraisals come in differently than planned, financing shifts late, timelines move. Somebody has to stay calm and figure out the next move.

That’s where repetition actually shows up — not in the easy deals, but in knowing what to do when the plan changes. More about how I work is on the about page, and the full record is on the experience page.