Housing slowdown hits N. Idaho

Home sales slowed and average sale prices dropped across much of North Idaho during the six months ending in April, compared with the same period a year earlier, new data shows.

The Coeur d’Alene Multiple Listing Service recorded 808 sales of houses on less than an acre in Kootenai and other North Idaho counties, a 21 percent decrease. That’s fewer houses than sold during the same period in 2002, a couple years before the peak of the Panhandle housing boom. Sales have declined during the six-month period since 2005.

The average sale price in Kootenai County dropped about 6 percent, to $226,462. The median price fell about 5 percent, to $195,000.

Both buyers and sellers have “come to grips with the feeding frenzy of recent years, but it appears that everyone has come to their senses,” Kim Cooper, spokesman for the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors, said in a news release.

In Spokane County, by comparison, single-family home sales from January through April fell by about a third, reaching levels similar to in 2000, according to Spokane Association of Realtors data.

Unlike Spokane, the Coeur d’Alene association only reports six-month totals.

All residential sales in North Idaho, including waterfront property, fell 19.3 percent, to 1,174, during the last six months. Total volume slid 22.2 percent, to about $298.36 million. Those sales averaged 130 days on the market, compared with 122 last year.

As in Spokane County, inventory continues to increase. There are about 3,689 residential properties for sale in the region served by the Coeur d’Alene Multiple Listing Service, compared with 3,630 a year ago.