Business in brief: Home sales fall 17.9 percent

Kootenai County home sales decreased 17.9 percent last year over 2006, while the price of a single-family house dipped slightly, according to data from the Coeur d’Alene Multiple Listing Service.

Hayden, Post Falls and North Kootenai County saw the greatest declines, contributing to 1,909 homes sold countywide, compared with 2,325 the prior year.

The median price was $202,000, down from $209,000 a year before. The average price fell 2.8 percent, to $239,261.

For all residential listings in North Idaho, including trailers and waterfront properties, sales fell 12.8 percent, to 3,476. The average price for those sales was $282,813, a 4.3 percent increase.

Increased inventory accompanied lower prices. There were about 2,600 residential listings as of Dec. 31 for an area including Kootenai and other North Idaho counties, a slight increase.

Single-family home sales last year in Spokane County, by comparison, fell about 11 percent.

– Parker Howell

Little Rock, Ark.

Wal-Mart reports rising coverage

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Tuesday the number of employees covered under its health insurance crept past 50 percent for the first time in recent reporting, after criticism by union-backed groups focused on its benefits package.

The world’s largest retailer said 50.2 percent of eligible employees accepted health care coverage for 2008, up from 43 percent in 2005. However, the Bentonville-based company acknowledged 9.7 percent of its employees reported receiving government health care coverage.

Wal-Mart said 7.3 percent of its workers reported being uninsured, down from 9.6 percent the year before. The company said about 1 million of Wal-Mart’s 1.3 million full-time and part-time workers in the U.S. were eligible for health care benefits during its last enrollment period.

Linda Dillman, an executive vice president of benefits and risk management for Wal-Mart, said Tuesday the increased enrollment likely came from the company’s new health care plan. The plan, which allows employees to customize coverage, includes premiums as low as $5 a month and access to $4 prescription drugs.

– From wire reports

San Francisco

EBay executive may step down

News that eBay Inc. Chief Executive Meg Whitman may retire comes as the online auctioneer faces slowing growth and disappointing returns from its $2.6 billion gamble on the Internet phone service Skype.

Whitman is preparing to retire after a decade at the helm, according to a Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. But eBay spokesman Hani Durzy declined to comment and called the report “rumor and speculation.”

The paper, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, reported that Whitman has increasingly been delegating daily responsibilities and is working on a plan of succession.

In October, the company reported its first quarterly loss since 1999 after a $900 million write-down in the value of Skype, which it purchased in 2005 for $2.6 billion. The company is to report its fourth-quarter earnings today. – From wire reports