Nothing scary about October sales
The results are in and sales in October continued to show improvement over previous years. In fact this is the sixth straight year of gains for home sales in the Coeur d’Alene Multiple Listing Service.
For the Coeur d’Alene and Dalton Gardens market we see a 20 percent increase in the number of homes sold this year as compared to last. So far 1,035 homes have sold in that geography at an average price that is 11 percent higher than in 2014 at $237,935.
Post Falls, with 764 sales outpaced last year by 22 percent. The average price for a home there is now $203,286 or 5 percent higher than last year. Hayden home prices increased by 6 percent to an average of $276,367. At the end of October the number of home sales there had increased 8 percent over last year.
Agents in the Silver Valley maintained the pace established last year selling exactly the same number of homes as in 2014 so far this year. Silver Valley sellers though were happy to have received an average of $86,157 for a single family home on a lot less than two acres in size. That is an increase of 3 percent over last year’s average price.
The star performers continue to be Rathdrum, Hauser and Twin Lakes. Sales there increased a whopping 29 percent compared to last year. The $209,579 average price represents an 18 percent improvement over last year’s average price there. Bonner and Boundary counties came on strong later in the year than Kootenai County but have now posted several months of marked improvement. October showed a 15 percent Year-to-Date increase over 2014 sales with an average price of $230,942 or an increase of 27 percent.
Sales of newly constructed homes account for 16 percent of our total sales which is an improvement over last year when those houses were 15 percent of our totals. Sales of foreclosed properties fell from 237 in 2014 to 190 as of Oct. 31. Short sales are less than half what were sold in 2014 with just 47 this year compared to 97 in that year.
As for dollar volume of all residential real estate, we have exceeded last year’s performance by more than $200 million. The average length of time a home stayed on the market was 118 days.
Commercial and investment property sales increased by 25 percent over the prior year although the total dollar volume of those sales decreased by about 3.5 percent. Not all commercial real estate brokerages are members of the Coeur d’Alene Multiple Listing Service and therefore do not report their activity there.
Vacant land sales for parcels of all sizes are up with increases in every category with the exception of master subdivisions. In that category there have been zero sales this year as the construction market continues to improve.
All in all the market appears robust and we see nothing to fear on the horizon.
Trust an expert…call a Realtor. Call your Realtor or visit www.cdarealtors.com to search properties on the Multiple Listing Service or to find a Realtor member who will represent your best interests.
Kim Cooper is a real estate broker and the spokesman for the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors. Kim and the association invite your feedback and input for this column. You may contact them by writing to the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors, 409 W. Neider, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83815 or by calling (208) 667-0664.