County housing inventory sees big dip

Clark County's supply of new and preowned homes for sale dropped dramatically last month, as more houses sold and fewer properties came on the market.

According to the Oregon-based Regional Multiple Listing Service, the county's inventory dropped to a 7.9-month supply in June, down from 11.1 months in May and a peak of 18.6 months in February. The June number means that it would take 7.9 months to sell all of the homes listed for sale if no new listings were added.

Pending sales in June were up 30.6 percent over June 2008, said the RMLS. That bodes well for stronger sales numbers in July, if the pending offers are accepted and deals closed.

Realtors have been predicting better home sales through the summer as first-time home buyers take advantage of an $8,000 tax credit and historically low mortgage interest rates, near 5 percent on a 30-year-fixed loan.

"A lot of people who have been sitting on the fence are starting to come out," said Paula Standfill, a sales agent for Windermere Real Estate/Stellar Group in Vancouver. Other buyers are rushing to make purchases before the tax credit deadline of Nov. 30, said Tracie DeMars, an agent with Re/Max Equity Group Inc.

"People realize there's only a few more months left, so it's now or never. When the federal government gives you $8,000 to buy a home, that goes a long way," DeMars said.

"They have to close by Nov. 30 or they're not going to get it," DeMars said.

Rising home sales aren't the only contributing factor to Clark County's shrinking inventory of homes listed for sale, said Sue Pauley, a Realtor with Windermere Real Estate/Stellar Group and treasurer of the Washington Realtors Association.

Pauley said some homeowners have canceled their for-sale listings, especially sellers of higher-priced houses $400,000 and up that were purchased at the peak of the market. The upper-end homes now appear to be languishing.

"Some people have taken homes off the market if they're going to take too big of a loss because of the competition with short sales, foreclosures and REOs (real estate owned, or bank-owned properties)," Pauley said.

Clark County ranked No. 1 out of Washington's 39 counties for having the highest rate of foreclosures, according to California-based RealtyTrac. In June, 500 county properties were in some stage of foreclosure, up slightly from 498 filings in May and up 79.9 percent from June 2008, when 278 homes were in foreclosure.

"We've never seen a market like this, so it's hard to make a prediction about what lies ahead," Pauley said.

Pauley said some real estate professionals are also leaving the industry, disillusioned by home sales that have steadily slipped since August 2007. She said that the number of licensed real estate agents statewide has dropped to 18,400 Realtors in 2009, a 27.8 percent decline from around 25,500 Realtors in 2008.

"Unemployment, lack of consumer confidence, every day we're hit with some kind of new problem on the world stage that is frightening," Pauley said.

Closed sales through the RMLS in June increased by 14.8 percent to 480 from June 2008. Median price of those homes was $212,500, down from $249,900 last year.