The Spokane-Coeur D’Alene Home Guy Blog

Looking at the recent statistics it’s easy to take a quick look and say “Yeah, prices are dropping.” but when looking a bit deeper, I believe home buyers are spending less on their home purchases than they were in months and years prior.

The tightening economy is causing many to downsize, in light of layoffs, high energy and gas prices etc., Inland Northwest families are forced to reprioritize and spend less on housing.  There are still plenty of high priced homes that sell (not as many as a year ago), but the lower priced older less updates homes are becoming more popular because they carry a comfortable price tag, lower monthly payments and relief from a large mortgage.

Sure, prices have dropped some - but consumers are changing the way they buy and thinking more about energy consumption, types of heating, updated windows & in some cases alternative heat sources such as wood and pellet stoves.  Other such modifications have been selecting homes on bus routes over homes in more remote areas to make use of public transit, walking & biking.  All are changes towards a more efficient way of life.

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Spokane’s closed residential (single family) has remained steady over the past 5 months peaking at 750 in June of this year with the low being April with 559 (and other than April all months have been over 600 closed units).  The average sale price in spokane has fluctuated overthe past few months with a definite doward trend.  222k in July, 208k in august and 203k in September - transactions are steady but the average sale price is dropping (more on this later).

Perhaps the biggest fluctuation is post falls with a one month jump in Average sales price from 199,777 to a whopping $249,903 in one month.  Ther are only 9 fewer transactions from August to September.

Click here to download the full report.

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The Washington State Housing Finance Commission offers incentives to purchase homes in specific areas in Spokane to promote home ownership.  Qualified applicants recieve lower interest rates, lower down payment requirements (0% with VA) and other great opportunities.

As of 8/12/2008 - rates are as low as 6% with minimal down payment requirements.  

For more information and for a list of homes available in these designated areas please do not hesitate to contact me.

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For first time home buyers, the government just sweetened the pot.

The message: get out there and buy a house.  The Reward: up to $7,500 in tax credits.

This works similar to other tax credits, it’s not free cash but it’s interest free cash for up to 15 years.  A qualified first time home buyer need only purchase an owner occupied residence (this can even be new construction). To qualify for the credit.  A first time home buyer is one who has not purchased or sold a primary residence in any of the last 3 years.  If you are married to someone who has, sorry, unfortunately you don’t qualify.

If you do, your accountant can apply for the credit which caps out at $7,500 on your taxes.  This credit is refundable, so even if you owe nothing to the IRS you can get a check back.

The money can be paid back over 15 years with payments as low as $500 / year (presumably paid in your annual taxes).  When you sell your house, you can pay back the “credit” with your equity (assuming you have equity to pay it back).

Interested?  Let’s talk.

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Transactions remained steady in July, the only increase was Coeur d’Alene with an increase of 3 transactions to 79 for the month.  Post Falls dropped 6 to 45, and Spokane dropped 18 to 732 (which represents the most steady month-to-month numbers for Spokane this year).

The average sale price went up in all three markets.  Coeur d’Alene jumped over $15,000 to an average of $259,511.16, Post Falls jumped just under $21,000 to $214,720.29, and Spokane with the smallest increase in average sales price changed to $222,803.16 from $219,829.47.

 The list to sold ratio (the ratio between what a seller lists their house and what the home ultimately sells for dropped in all three markets.  Coeur d’Alene dropped to 96.66% of asking price, Post Falls to 98.07% of asking price and Spokane to 97.87% of asking price.

 Interested in seeing more?  Click here for the full report.

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New rules coming down from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke aim to prevent the current mortgage lending crisis from happening again in the future. The rules will require stricter requirements for proving income of borrowers, limiting or eliminating pre-payment penalties. The changes will also require lenders to consider the borrowers ability to repay from sources other than the home’s value.

Read more.

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Interesting article.

It appears that more and more cities are seeing banks delay the foreclosure process when the occupant abandons the property.  There can be many reasons but the article speculates that the banks are trying to minimize losses on their books which may catch the eye of regulators.  Others presume it’s to avoid costly maintenance fees, taxes, and increased liability.

Nevertheless, it’s happening on a large scale.  Neighborhoods of all flavors are seeing often smelly over-grown eye sores sitting detracting from the value of their surrounding properties.

What can one do?  Little without trespassing.

City and county officials (according to the article) have spent millions on cleaning up such properties with little recourse to banks and prior owners.  At the end of the day, the tax payers are footing the bill.

Just another added benefit of a changing market.

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Comparison of 3 markets.  Post Falls, Coeur d’Alene and Spokane.

I think you’ll be interested in what you see.

Download Report.

For other Idaho Cities - shoot me a note.

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The residential numbers are in… and they look good.

June proved successful. The average closed sale price jumped over $6,000 to $219,829.47 the largest jump since March to April. Is this a sign of things to come for the rest of the summer season?

Transactions are also up 123 to 750 for the month of June.

The only number that slipped was the Sold to List % dropped 8/100ths of a percent making June the third best month for sellers behind April & May 2008.

Download The Report.

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I recently decided to tear down the builder supplied deck that was virtually falling off of my house and erect a much larger composite deck.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the handyman around the house, and my skills are better used cleaning up the debris from construction rather than actually constructing, but I decided to take this one on myself.

I did a little research.  Code has changed a lot in the 7 years since my home was built and the deck originally fastened so I thought I’d find out the right way to do it.

Spokane County has a great resource that helps even a novice handyman (like myself) determine the materials and support methods needed for a basic deck.  Simple diagrams and charts (yes, they had to draw me a picture) made it easy for me to determin what I needed.

Take a peek here.

I’d like to give a shout out to Steve Pirtle of Foundations and Up Home Inspections (509) 954-5922 for spending a weekend helping me build my new desk.

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