A cooler summer in N. Idaho

HAYDEN LAKE, Idaho – Aggressive Californians made a nuisance of themselves last year in Gene Langford’s driveway, angling to buy his just-finished retirement home.

Langford says he turned down 15 to 20 unsolicited offers for the house, which backs up to Avondale Golf Club’s fourth fairway. One particularly insistent couple was willing to write Langford a $450,000 check on the spot, if he would agree to move out in 30 days.”People were trying to buy it out from underneath me,” said the 63-year-old Boeing retiree.

What Langford wouldn’t give for that crowd this summer.

His plans to stay in Hayden Lake changed late last year, when he learned that his son would be sent to Iraq for a second time. Now Langford is preparing to move to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, so he can help his daughter-in-law and be near his two young grandkids. But he can’t find a buyer for his property, even though he’s slashed the price – from $449,000 to $339,000.

“The market’s crashed,” Langford said. “I just feel like I got caught up in a bad situation.”

Realtors don’t use the word “crash” to describe Kootenai County’s current real estate market, but they do acknowledge that it has cooled considerably from last summer’s frenzied pace.

Sellers like Langford no longer have the upper hand. They’re gone from mulling multiple offers to competing for a smaller pool of buyers.

The trend is reflected in the Coeur d’Alene Multiple Listing Service’s latest figures. About 1,200 homes sold in Kootenai County during the first six months of the year, compared to nearly 1,700 during the first half of 2005.

Despite fewer sales, however, prices are still rising. In Kootenai County, the median – or midpoint – sales price was $212,232 for the first six months of this year, compared with $184,900 for the same period in 2005.

“The elusive buyer is what we’re all hunting this year,” said Randy Henley, Langford’s real estate agent.

Henley was hopeful when an out-of-state couple toured Langford’s house last week. But at the end of the day, when Henley called the couple back, they couldn’t clearly recall the 1,400-square foot home on Strahorn Avenue, with gas fireplaces in the bedrooms and a golf course off the back deck. They’d seen so many houses that day, their impressions were blurred.

“There’s just a lot to pick from,” Henley said. “It makes them all harder to sell.”

Langford happens to be in a particularly competitive price range, according to a recent market analysis by Windermere Coeur d’Alene Realty.

Last month, Kootenai County had 338 homes for sale priced between $300,000 and $349,999. July is traditionally one of the busiest real estate months in North Idaho. However, only 19 homes in that price range sold last month.

Here’s another way to think of it: Based on the rate of sales in July, it would take 18 months to sell all the $300,000 to $349,999 homes currently on the market, said Jamie Ziegler, Windermere’s sales manager.

Buyers are benefiting from the increase in inventory, particularly at the starter-end of the market, noted Loretta Reed, an agent at Windermere Coeur d’Alene. Last year, she had a difficult time finding three-bedroom homes priced under $200,000 to show to young families. In July, nearly half of the homes for sale in Kootenai County were priced below $200,000.

The cool-off is part of a long-expected trend in the real estate market, Realtors noted. Declining investor activity accounts for part of the change. Last year, real estate investors bought about 35 percent of the homes purchased in Kootenai County, said Dan Flanagan, president of the Coeur d’Alene MLS. This year, investors make up a much smaller component of the market, he said.

Even with the slowdown, 2006 is shaping up, by historical standards, as a strong real estate year in Kootenai County, other agents noted.

That’s small consolation to Langford, whose home has been on the market for 10 months. In his living room, he shows off pictures of his son, Capt. John Langford, who left for Iraq two weeks ago. The elder Langford is getting anxious to report for his own “grandpa duty” in Western Washington.

He’s having a home built on the Olympic Peninsula, which should be finished by the end of October. All Langford needs is one committed buyer in Idaho – perhaps someone who plays golf five days a week, like him.

The Strahorn home provides “peace and quiet on the golf course,” he said.