Look for continued improvement in the real estate market in 2014, following significant market upswing in most sectors of the industry this year, some market observers here say.
In one of the brighter real estate sectors, Spokane-area residential sales improved for the second consecutive year in 2013, and Ken Lewis, owner of Spokane Valley-based Prudential Spokane Real Estate, says he expects the spring of 2014 to be the best spring for sales in many years.
“The attitude is different,” he says. “It’s not that the economy is wonderful, but it’s pointing in the right direction.”
Lewis says prospective buyers know that interest rates have hit bottom.
“Interest rates are still very low, but they are creeping up a little,” he says. “People are wiser, and they know prices are going to be up some more.”
In the first 11 months of 2013, 5,055 homes were sold through the Spokane Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service, an increase of 22 percent compared with the year-earlier period, says Rob Higgins, the association’s executive vice president.
This year also marks the first year that home sales through the MLS here have topped 5,000 units in any full year since 2007, Higgins says.
“For 2013, it was a rather significant increase,” he says, adding, “I don’t know if it we’ll reach that level of increase in 2014. For us in Spokane, we’re anticipating a gradual climb out of the bottom, which was in 2011.”
The median home sales price for the first 11 months of the year was $164,400, up from $160,000 for the year-earlier period, according to MLS data.
Higgins says he’s expecting the median sales price to increase 3 percent to 5 percent in 2014.
Jeff Johnson, president of Spokane-based Black Commercial Inc., says the outlook for commercial real estate for 2014 also is positive.
“Not everything got turned around, but overall market activity increased in 2013 and will continue to increase in 2014,” Johnson says.
Vacant land sales have increased in the last year, he says, and developers are looking for sites for apartments and multifamily housing.
Johnson says he’s also seeing an uptick in interest in land zoned for industrial uses.
“We’re starting to see a number of national companies looking in Spokane for branch locations,” he says. “They’re not large transactions, but new companies coming to town is a good thing.”
Johnson adds that some national retailers also are showing interest in Spokane-area locations, but he’s not seeing a corresponding increase in real estate leases and purchases by local businesses.
“We’re not seeing mom-and-pop retailers like we would like to,” he says.
The office market still faces some of the greatest challenges, as it’s lagging behind other market sectors, Johnson says.
“There is some slow improvement in occupancy,” Johnson says, “But it’s not what we would have in a normal economy. We just need some additional job growth.”