USA Today on Spokane market

No shockers here: Tough winter weather hurt home sales, but Spokane’s diversified economy isolates the area from the worst of the national housing downturn, a reporter for USA Today writes today.

Spokane is the latest locale covered by USA Today’s “Close to Home” real estate feature. The area’s monthly sales volume declined 36.7 percent, compared with 17.8 percent in Rochester, N.Y., 11.6 percent in St. Louis, Mo., and 23 percent in Gainesville, Fla., other places featured by USA Today.

A local economist refers to tightening credit standards, which we reported about on Sunday (story here ).

Yet it’s a sign of just how broadly the nation’s real estate recession has spread that even in the Spokane area, home sales have been facing unusually tough times.

“Banks have tightened up their lending standards, and so it’s harder for people who are on the edge to get loans,” says Grant Forsyth, associate professor of economics at Eastern Washington University.

Author Christine Dugas unearths one interesting tidbit: Cyrus O’Leary’s founder Cyrus Vaughn and his wife, Janet, want to sell their “two-story Cape Cod-style home, built in 1990” for $2.1 million. The six-bedroom, seven-bathroom home measures 12,632-square-feet and offers nanny’s quarters and a backyard pond, according to USA Today.

USA Today next heads to Albuquerque. Read the story here .