PORT ANGELES — The present housing industry downturn is the third, but not the worst, since Dave Ramey of Coldwell Banker Uptown Realty launched his Port Angeles-area real estate career 36 years ago.
“The early ’80s was the worst with 15 percent interest rates,” the associate broker recalled. “It was the worst because people couldn’t sell their properties.”
“I would say it is shaping up to be the longest” downturn, Ramey added.
Banks now are lending for existing homes, which has modestly pushed up sales in the first quarter compared to the same quarter in 2010, he said.
“As a broad overview, prices have softened 5 to 7 percent,” Ramey said, comparing the first quarter of 2011 to the same period last year. The pressure’s on interest rates. The interest rates are not going to go any lower.”
Recent mortgage interest rates have been running between the lower 4 percent range to the upper 5 percent range.
Dick Pilling, president of Port Angeles Association of Realtors, said lenders have made it harder to qualify, but if you have good credit, there are few hurdles to overcome.
With prices declining about 5 percent this year compared to last, said Pilling, who also is the chairman of the Clallam County Republican Party.
“We view that as a good thing.”
The logic being lower prices can only boost sales.
Mortgage problems first arose when companies allowed home buyers to be over-extended on credit, which led to foreclosures, many Realtors have said.
Later rises in foreclosures often involved people who lost their jobs or faced other financial crises in a slowed economy — and that phenomenon has had much to do with the rise in Port Angeles-area home sales during the first quarter this year, real estate professionals agree.
“In essence, we have 20 percent of the market that are repossessed properties,” said Doc Reiss, real estate agent with Windermere Port Angeles. “We seeing people come in for a first time and others coming in for the investments.”
Real estate owned, or REO as Realtors commonly call it, is the foreclosure process of going to auction for lack of mortgage payment.
If the property can’t sell at auction, the bank takes possession.
22 homes foreclosed
In the Port Angeles-area market, 22 homes were foreclosed upon during the first quarter of 2011, starting with prices low as $35,000 and as high as $275,000.
“Short sales,” the foreclosure process where more is owed on a home than the market will allow, numbered 17 during the first quarter in the Port Angeles-area market.
Reiss cites January to April 13 figures showing 74 homes sold in the Port Angeles area from Barr Road to Joyce.
Last year during the same period, 63 homes were sold.
Last year those 63 homes sold for $187,168 average price with $35,000 the cheapest, being a mobile home.
The median price last year in Port Angeles was $180,000, with an average of 97 days on the market.
“The number of sales are up but the dollar volume is down,” Reiss said.
The average first-quarter price this year was $177,902 with a median price this year of $172,450.
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TUESDAY: Market active on the West End.