Spokane home sales better than national average

Spokane’s August residential sales figures show a total of 709 sales reported for the month. This figure is down 10 sales from last month and down 98 closed sales from August of 2006. The average sales price for August was $215,752 and the median sales price came in at $194,000.

The year-to-date closed sale figures for the first eight months of 2007 show that sales are down 4 percent when compared to the first eight-month period in 2006. There were 4,871 closed sales reported year-to-date compared to 5,076 in 2006. The year-to-date average sales price is $212,023, up 10.3 percent over last year.

Inventory, as of the time of this report, stands at 3,241 active residential listings, up approximately 26 percent over one year ago. New home sales reported to the Spokane Association of REALTORS® are down 10 percent when compared to last year through August.

However, on the national scene, tighter credit for home mortgages is expected to dampen home sales in the short term with an expected recovery for existing-home sales in 2008, according to the latest forecast of the National Association of REALTORS®.

A senior economist said unusual disruptions in the mortgage market are dampening the national outlook for home sales. Lawrence Yun, senior economist said,

“There’s been an unusual hit to home sales, starting in March when sub-prime problems emerged and more recently when problems spread to jumbo loans, with many potential buyers on the sidelines,” Yun said.

“However, the jumbo loan market is now beginning to settle, and FHA-insured loans are helping to fill the sub-prime vacuum. The volume of existing home sales this year will be better than 2002, which was the second year of the housing boom.”

Existing-home sales are projected at 5.92 million this year and then rise to 6.27 million in 2008, compared with 6.48 million in 2006. New home sales total 801,000 in 2007 and 741,000 next year.

“A sharp production pullback by homebuilders deep into 2008 is a healthy trend that will help trim down housing inventory,” Yun said.