Spokane homes faring well
Prices have fallen, but not as badly as rest of country
A tenth of the people who sold homes in Spokane County in the past year sold them for less than they paid originally, according to a new national report.
And home values in the county dropped by 9 percent in the past 12 months, with an estimated 85 percent of all homes declining in value, according to a report prepared by Zillow.com, an online site that compiles and analyzes real estate information. Other real estate reports, however, indicate the decline in value is less than 9 percent.
Either way, the picture in Spokane County is much better than in the rest of the country, the Zillow report says. Nationwide, almost a third of all homes sold in the past 12 months went for a loss, and rates of foreclosure and homeowners with negative equity nationally outpaced the rates here.
Amy Bohutinsky, spokeswoman for Zillow, said the Spokane market was performing better than the national average in several categories. Over the past five years, for example, the company’s estimates for home values have risen 7 percent.
“Compared to the rest of the country, Spokane is actually doing quite well,” she said.
Another report, to be released today, finds that foreclosure filings in Washington and Idaho were up sharply in October – running 95 percent ahead of last October. The average increase nationally was 25 percent, according to the report from RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties.
The Spokane Association of Realtors and a WSU researcher who studies the local real estate market said Zillow’s estimates for the drop in home values seem high. They noted that the average sale price of homes in Spokane County is down just 3 percent so far this year, compared to 2007.
“I’m a little surprised they are claiming as large a year-over-year decline in values for the Spokane marketplace as they are,” said Glenn Crellin, director of WSU’s Washington Center for Real Estate Research. “I really had not expected a 9 percent decline.”
Zillow estimates values for all homes in a market – not just sale prices. The company uses a variety of statistics to compile the estimates, including county valuations and recent home sales, Bohutinsky said.
Crellin called the calculation “extraordinarily complicated” and said some of the data used in it is “softer” than others.
Sabrina Jones-Schroeder, co-owner of Exit Real Estate/Jones and Associates and a former president of the Spokane Association of Realtors, said she disputes the accuracy of a 9 percent drop in home values here.
“I totally disagree,” Jones-Schroeder said. “Nine percent is way out of whack.”
She said that the average home sale in Spokane County for October was $207,000, down from $212,000 last year. A bigger issue for the local market is the number of sales, which are down about 30 percent over the past year, as buyers struggle to get credit and the general economy stalls.
The report does not include information for Kootenai County.
In addition to estimating home values, the Zillow report tracked the number of homeowners who are “under water” – owing more than the value of their home. Of people who bought homes in Spokane County during the past five years, 13.4 percent have negative equity in their homes, the report said – also well below the national figure of about 30 percent.
Crellin said part of that figure represents homeowners who got mortgages under relaxed standards in 2005 and 2006, with little or no money down and teaser interest rates that shot up after a few years.
For some of those homeowners, “suddenly they’re in a situation where their mortgage payments went up 30 percent,” he said. “How many of us could afford a 30 percent increase in our mortgage payment?”
Both the Zillow report and Association of Spokane Realtors figures agree on a general point: The market here has suffered less than most places nationwide.
Spokane didn’t see the drastically inflated home prices of a few years ago, and it hasn’t suffered the same kinds of crushing declines, Jones-Schroeder said.
In 17 markets across the country – 14 in California – more than half of all homes sold were sold for a loss, Zillow said. In Stockton, Calif., home values dropped by 49 percent compared to a year ago, and nearly three-quarters of all homeowners owe more than their house is worth.
“We’re just not seeing the deep decline in values here that you’re seeing in other markets,” Jones-Schroeder said.