Tri-City Home Sales Stay Steady

Mid-Columbia keeps national trend at bay

Emma Kramer, 3, likes to talk about her family’s new house, particularly the room she’ll call her room. “She just wants to have a bedroom that’s purple,” said her mom, Tracie. The Kramer family, including Tracie’s husband Kraig and their other daughter Erika, 1, recently moved from Huntsville, Alabama, for Kraig’s job with Bechtel.

They started looking for a house online before they moved and checked out 20 or 25 homes once they arrived at the beginning of July. A four-bedroom home in west Kennewick caught their fancy. “We wanted to have space for the family, for the two kids” and for company, Tracie Kramer said. “We wanted to have a decent sized yard for the kids to play in. We wanted something that was relatively low maintenance. This is the couple’s fourth home and Tracie said she was pleased with the selection in the Tri-Cities, though homes seemed more expensive than in Huntsville.

They didn’t have problems selling their home in Alabama, and though homes here seemed to have been on the market longer than in Huntsville, Tracie said she thought the local housing market looked “pretty steady.” The bicounty housing market has slowed some since last year, including a 16 percent drop in home sales through the first six months of the year.

There were 1529 sales during the first six months of the year, according to mid-July information from the Tri-City Association of Realtors. That’s compared of 1820 during the same time last year. Permits for new home construction are down about 14 percent through June, from 833 last year to 716 this year, according to the Home Builders Association of Tri-Cities.

Uncertainty at Hanford always affects the housing market and once the federal Department of Energy awards a prime contract for Hanford services, such as security, information technology and utilities there is an expectation of real estate activity to pick up.  Some people moving here are finding difficulty selling their properties in markets that they’re leaving.  There is a general perception on the part of the consumer that the market is much less vibrant than the actual 16 percent drop in home sales.

Glenn, Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research, said “the Tri-Cities market is probably marching to its own beat.” The area’s housing market didn’t experience big run-ups and it’s not seeing big declines like other parts of the country, he said. “It’s certainly a market that doesn’t warrant any panicking,” Crellin said.  Sales prices continue to rise as well.

The average sales price in June was about $199,000 — a 1.5 percent increase over $196,100 in June 2007. For the first six months of the year, the average sale price was $187,700 — up almost 1 percent from $186,400 during the same time last year. Tight credit requirements likely are affecting some buyers. “Credit standards across the board…are all much tighter than I’ve ever seen them,” said Mark Runsvold, branch manager for CLS Mortgage in Kennewick.

He said he’s a little concerned that even people with stellar credit and incomes that support buying a home aren’t able to get zero-down loans, which are still in demand. The company’s purchases and refinances are down slightly compared to last year and it’s a bit of a nerve-wracking time to be in the mortgage industry, he said.

But overall, CLS is staying busy and has hired a couple of new employees since last year, Ronsvold said. Home inventory, another indicator of market health, was about comparable with the beginning of July last year, at just more than 1,400 homes. That points to a fairly balanced market, officials said, which is anything in the five-to-seven month range.

Last quarter, Crellin said the Tri-City market had a 7-8 month supply. That compares to the 9.5 month supply for Washington. Though expensive gas and food prices aren’t helping the local housing market, buyers will prioritize a home purchase over buying other things. And with continued growth in local industries such as wine and medicine, he thinks the market will have a strong second half of the year.

Ingrid Stegemoeller, Tri-City Herald