As real estate agents across Clark County hold their breath for August’s real estate statistics, they’re sticking to their guns – the sky is not falling.
The residential market has certainly been better, they say, but it has definitely been a lot worse.
There is fair inventory, pretty good interest rates – they’re currently hovering above 7 percent – and about 4 percent appreciation, said Randy Huntzeker, president of the Clark County Association of Realtors.
“We’re still moving up,” he said. “We’re not sitting on a bubble of any kind, and really, things are pretty good.”
As an agent for Signature GMAC Real Estate in Vancouver, Huntzeker said he is having a better year than last year.
“From our point of view, things have been painted doom and gloom,” he said. “Yes, this is a more challenging market, but that means agents just have to work a little harder to make the sale.”
Through July, Windermere Vancouver Assoc. Broker Mike Lamb said he was seeing signs reminiscent of the county’s stable housing market of 2002 and 2003.
But looking at preliminary numbers for August, Lamb said it appears new activity was off fairly dramatically compared to the previous August. New pending sales tend to reflect exactly what is happening in the current market, and September and October are going to be telling, he said.
“Before August, I was encouraged because it was beginning to look like things were starting to normalize,” Lamb said.
Dian Lane, designated broker at Prudential NW Properties in Battle Ground, said the market may be picking up and hopes it is stabilizing.
“But any little blip could send us in a downward spiral,” she said. “A large local company could close down. There could be a big change in unemployment. There could be another 9-11.”
There is a sense that potential buyers are seeing dire headlines and waiting for things to hit rock bottom, which isn’t likely to happen, Lane said.
For well-qualified buyers, Huntzeker said, now is a good time to buy.
The first-time home buyers’ range of $190,000 to $250,000 is fairly strong, and if homes are well-priced, they go quickly, he said.
This is not a market for house flippers who are looking to make a quick buck, but the outlook is good for long-term investors and first-time buyers, said Kale Dunning, assoc. broker at Century 21 Cascade Pacific in Vancouver.
“You have choices now,” he said. “You’re getting better quality now for the same price you would have paid for a house you were settling on two years ago.”
Conversely, homes in the $400,000 price range are not moving quickly – not to say they’re not selling.
But that doesn’t mean the market is bad for sellers.
“A good house priced at market value is still selling,” Huntzeker said.
There is significantly less new building, but the inventory of houses currently on the market isn’t terribly high – nothing near record numbers. However, it is the highest it’s been in a year, Lamb said.
There is currently 7.6 months worth of inventory on the market, which means if the current rate of sales continues and there are no new listings added to the market, it will take 7.6 months to deplete the inventory.
The market is stepping back to where it was before the “go-go market” of 2004 and 2005 – not a bad thing, Lamb said.
“My sense is we’re getting into a more traditional market,” he said.
And the high-end market is as good as it’s ever been, Lamb added.
This year, 117 homes have been sold for more than $750,000, and a number of those were multi-million-dollar listings.
“We’re selling a lot of those houses, there’s just a lot of them,” he said.
In July, there were 4,563 active listings on the market with about 600 closed sales. The median sale price was $269,900 and the average price was $315,000
“We’re certainly not setting the world on fire, but there were 7,000 homes sold in the county over the last year,” Lamb said. “I think this is the new normal market.”
A NICE CHANGE FOR BUYERS
The Community Housing Resource Center is very, very busy, said executive director Terri Duffy.
“People are finding for the first time in quite some time that buyers have some options,” she said. “For most of the people we work with, that’s a nice change.”
Potential buyers are also learning they need a pretty stellar credit history to buy.
“They can’t just go out and find loan profile products with their credit issues,” Duffy said. “Even if they don’t have bad credit, things like late payments are making it more difficult to get a loan.”
There are still many good mortgage products available for buyers, but there are starting to be fewer mortgage lenders in the marketplace and the remaining lenders are regularly changing their loan products, she said.
“Frankly I’m pleased that people are realizing what’s best for their long-term interest is to be able to improve their money-managing habits,” Duffy said. “Even though this is an uncomfortable time for Realtors and lenders, as a culture and a nation, we’re starting to look at some of the underlying issues people have with financial management and spending habits.”
REALTORS ADDED
When the housing market began to slow locally, most predicted there would be a massive fallout of agents. That hasn’t happened.
The Clark County Association of Realtors hit 2,000 agents for the first time last year. This year the association budgeted for 1,850 members.
As of press time, 2,026 agents were registered with CCAR.
“It’s kind of surprising,” said CCAR President Randy Huntzeker. “What we’re seeing is a sense of ‘This, too, will change.’ This business is one of those that if you graphed it, it would look like a roller coaster.”
NOT TAKING IT BACK
Washington and Oregon have some of the lowest repossession rates in the country, said Dian Lane, designated broker at Prudential NW Properties in Battle Ground.
