Spokane housing market thriving so far

Spokane’s housing market took home a glowing report card, at least for the first half of the year.

Sales of homes on less than one acre were 20 percent higher than last year, the Spokane Association of Realtors reported Wednesday. From January through June, 2,469 homes were sold in the county, compared with 2,046 in 2012.

The one blip was a drop-off in home sales in June, from 588 in May to 497 last month.

However, notes Rob Higgins, executive officer of the Spokane Association of Realtors, May was “an unusually hot month.”

June was no slacker, registering 50 more sales than April’s previous high mark for the year, he added.

For the second month in a row, home sales in Liberty Lake helped set the pace, Higgins noted.

That area racked up 40 June home sales with a median price of $217,030.

Liberty Lake also recorded the largest single home sale – for a waterfront residence that sold for $713,175.

Liberty Lake also had 15 sales of newly constructed homes. The rest of the county registered 24 new-home sales, Higgins said.

The median sales price of all homes sold this year so far is $162,500, or 5.9 percent above last year’s $153,450.

Higgins said modest price inflation keeps local buyers motivated to continue house-hunting.

Breaking from the norm, sales of homes with 1 to 5 acres basically has been flat so far – 151 sales compared to 152 in the same period last year.

Median prices for those larger properties fell from $255,000 in 2012 to $250,900 this year, Higgins said. That drop is not unusual since the number of larger properties sold is far smaller than the rest of the market, he said.