Avista promotes Morris, Malquist

Avista Corp. has promoted Scott Morris to president and chief operating officer, adding oversight of the entire company’s operations to duties that previously were mostly devoted to the company’s regulated utility division.

The move was made with an eye on leadership succession, said Gary Ely, Avista Corp.’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Morris will continue to run the day-to-day operations of the utility. Avista hired him in 1981.

The company also announced that Malyn Malquist, chief financial officer, has taken on the additional title of executive vice president. He was hired in 2002 and now has strategic oversight of two Avista subsidiaries.

Spokane

Home sales dip, but prices rise

There are signs the pace of home sales in Washington is slowing down, but prices continued to climb in the first quarter of 2006, according to the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University.

Rising interest rates lessened the number of homes sold in the first three months of 2006, compared to a year ago, but the price of homes soared 17 percent in the same period.

The Spokane market was particularly strong, with prices rising 26.4 percent from the year before, to an average of $169,900, the report said.

“It’s fairly typical that the Spokane market really heats up three years or so after the Seattle market has caught fire,” said Glenn Crellin, director of the Pullman-based center.

After a few years of rising prices in the Puget Sound region, the Spokane market looks like a bargain and buyers swoop in, Crellin said.

The report is produced in conjunction with Washington Realtors.

In Eastern Washington, Spokane was the only urban market with rising sales. The number of homes sold in Yakima was down 3.6 percent and in the Tri-Cities was down 5.8 percent.

New York

Gold prices off nearly 4 percent

Gold prices tumbled nearly 4 percent Monday after the precious metal reached multidecade highs last week.

June gold fell $27.10 to settle at $691.90 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange after sinking as low as $685 an ounce earlier in the day, its lowest level since it surged above $700 last Tuesday.

San Jose, Calif.

Skype drops charge for calls

Skype, eBay Inc.’s Internet telephone subsidiary, has stopped charging users for dialing up people on traditional landline and mobile phones in the U.S. and Canada.

The Internet telephone service, which has always offered free PC-to-PC calls around the world, said Monday it will offer its SkypeOut service for free until the end of the year. Previously, Skype users paid about 2 cents a minute for calls to landline and mobile telephones.

Users who make outgoing calls to and within countries outside the U.S. and Canada will continue to incur per-minute charges.