Victory Homes, a Coeur d'Alene-based home builder that previously had concentrated on the North Idaho market, says it's expanding into the Spokane market.

The company recently began building single-family homes in the Prairie Crest development in the Five-Mile area of Spokane and now is beginning to construct homes at two other Spokane-area developments, says Carri Berglund, its sales and marketing director.

Victory Homes will be building in the Morningside development, just south of Spokane Valley, and in the River District, in Liberty Lake. The River District is being developed by Liberty Lake-based Greenstone Corp., and Summit Properties Inc., is developing the Morningside neighborhood.

Berglund says Victory Homes has had brisk sales so far this year and hopes to build and sell 100 or more homes in 2010, up from the 65 homes it built and sold in Idaho last year. In 2008, the company built about 85 homes.

"Nobody's breaking any records, but we're really seeing things improve," Berglund says. She says Victory Homes has fared well by not keeping a large inventory of spec homes and by offering homes with varying floor plans and at a variety of prices.

Previously, now-defunct Sullivan Homes Inc., of Spokane Valley, was the main builder in the Morningside area, says Mark Montgomery, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Schneidmiller Realty, of Coeur d'Alene, which is marketing houses for Victory Homes in both the Liberty Lake and Morningside areas.

"When they closed, there was a void," he says. Montgomery says that with relatively low interest rates and potential tax benefits, there's been renewed interest in new homes.

"Building costs are down, and people are realizing that there are good deals out there on the resale market and also good deals on new construction," he says.