Activity in most real estate sectors will remain steady or continue to grow in 2016, some market monitors here say. 

Melissa Murphy, owner and managing broker at Spokane-based Prime Real Estate Group, says 2015 was a stronger year for residential real estate than 2014, which also was a strong post-recession sales year.

The hottest-selling segment includes homes listed near the median price point, Murphy says.

“Homes between $150,000 and $250,000 still sell quickly,” she says.

She says she expects sales in 2016 will be similar to 2014, if not as high as 2015 levels.

In the first 11 months of 2015, 6,266 homes were sold through the Spokane Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service, an increase of nearly 18 percent compared with the year-earlier period.

Rob Higgins, executive officer at the Spokane Association of Realtors, says he expected single-family home sales to approach or exceed 6,700 by the end of the year.

Higgins says he expects sales will continue to increase in 2016, but at a more moderate pace, and he expects the median sales price will increase 3 percent to 5 percent.

The median sales price for homes sold through the MLS in in the first 11 months of 2015 was $179,900, up 6.8 percent from a year earlier.

“Considering the population growth here in the last 20 years, 6,500 to 7,000 in annual sales should be sustainable,” he says adding that sales might break the 7,000-unit barrier before 2020.

New home construction through November is up about 6 percent, compared with the year-earlier period, he says.

Murphy says, “There’s high demand for new construction, because builders are struggling to find lots to build on. Builders also are pressed to meet demand because they can’t rehire the workforce they had in 2004 and 2005 overnight.”

Guy Byrd, managing director of SVN Cornerstone, of Spokane, says the commercial real estate market saw “nice improvement” in 2015 compared with the prior year.

Over the next two years, Byrd expects the north Newport Highway area and the Regal corridor on the South Hill to be strong development areas. He predicts new retailers will come to the market and new commercial construction projects will rise from the ground in both areas in 2016 and 2017.

In the Regal corridor, for example, prospective tenants are lining up for the planned 75,000-square-foot Commons on Regal, at 5414 S. Regal, and at a planned 100,000-square-foot, mixed-use village at the former KXLY site across from Regal Plaza.

Byrd says he’s also seeing interest in investment properties that exceeds the supply here.

Karen Meek, a principal at Valbridge Property Advisors|Auble, Jolicoeur & Gentry Inc., says occupancy rates have been improving in most sectors of the office market.

“Leasing has been pretty active. Our vacancy rates are generally trending down. Hopefully, it will continue to improve in 2016,” says Meek, adding that occupancy rates are still below prerecession levels.

She says she expects to see some movement in office space sales and leases in the downtown periphery, especially where a few owners of recently purchased buildings plan to occupy them, displacing lease tenants.

“Better-located properties are the most sought after by buyers,” she says. “There are going to be some (tenants) that have to go someplace else.”

—Mike McLean