Housing markets across the state and in Clark County continued to strengthen in the three months ending Sept. 30, registering the fifth consecutive quarterly improvement in home sales activity, the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies reported Wednesday.
The center, based at Seattle’s University of Washington campus, reported increasing median home prices throughout the state, with affordability indexes dropping measurably.
The number of existing-house sales statewide in the third quarter of 2013 increased 7.1 percent from the second quarter and 30 percent from the same period a year ago, reaching a seasonally adjusted annual sale rate of 99,960 homes. It was the highest sales rate since the second quarter of 2007.
The report found that the number of third-quarter sales also increased in Clark County, up 38.6 percent from the same period in 2012. There were 7,110 houses sold in Clark County and 557 permits issued to build ones in the quarter, a 97 percent year-over-year increase. Third-quarter median housing prices in Clark County reached $238,600, up 17.5 percent from the same period a year ago.
