Home sales rise as prices drop

Whitman County’s housing market picked up in both sales and prices to start 2010.

The Washington Center for Real Estate Research released its quarterly report of the state housing market this week.

Median price of houses sold during the first quarter of 2010 was $206,200, up 17.8 percent from the value of homes sold during the first quarter of 2009.

Glenn Crellin, director of the center at Washington State University, attributed the jump in average price of sold homes to a decrease in the cost of high-end homes.

“It appears that the soft prices at the top of the market caused a lot of buyers to take another look and say, ‘Oh we can afford to pay $220k and get more house than what we had planned,’” Crellin told the Gazette Tuesday.

While the price of homes sold in Whitman County took a dramatic upswing, home values across the state fell three percent.

Only Okanogan County, where prices rose 19.2 percent, saw a larger increase in home prices than Whitman County.

The report showed 300 homes sold in Whitman County during the first quarter of 2010. That was 15.4 percent more than what Crellin called the “abysmal” first quarter of 2009, but down 52 percent from the fourth quarter. Across the state, home sales increased by 36.3 percent from 2009.

Crellin said budget cuts at both WSU and the University of Idaho created more tenuous homebuyers.

“That doesn’t engender a lot of confidence in the local economy and makes people think twice about buying a new home,” he said.

The universities typically impact home sales in Whitman County. First quarter statistics are often lower than summer periods, said Crellin, because most area residents are tied to the university time schedule. People don’t buy houses until the school year ends, he said.