Housing market on the rebound

With the arrival of the spring homebuying season, veterans in the local home construction and real estate industries are reporting that the housing market is shifting from its slow, steady recovery during the cruel housing downturn into a strong seller’s market. Builders and brokers say they’re seeing more first-time buyers finally entering the market, plenty of people downsizing or moving up as their houses have regained value, and a stream of newcomers, arriving mostly from California and other Southwestern states.

The month of March was “by almost any measure, the best March since 2006,” said Mike Lamb, broker at Windermere Stellar Vancouver, in his monthly market report. “(In) some respects, it was even better than March 2006.”

The evidence: There were 884 pending residential sales, for the first March with 800-plus sales since 2006. The 612 closed sales in March of this year were also the most for a March since 2006.

Those high levels of sales have shrunk the inventory of housing for sale to pre-recession levels. Predictably, growing demand and shrinking supply is pushing up prices, which are now 7 percent higher than a year ago.

If the current hot market continues, Lamb predicts that “price increases could exceed 10 percent this year.”

Industry rebounds

The housing recovery has replenished employment in some of the industries decimated by the downturn that left Clark County with bankrupt builders, unfinished subdivisions and countless loan foreclosures. But neither housing prices nor industry-related jobs have returned to their peak levels of the past decade.

From 2005 to 2007, real estate offices in Clark County employed just over 550 agents and brokers, according to the state Employment Security Department. The most recent count, in 2014, found about 375 workers in those positions. Construction employment has dropped from 13,000 in both 2006 and 2007 to 9,900 in 2014, the state Employment Security Department reports.

The construction industry’s extreme financial distress during the recession is reflected in the membership history of the Building Industry Association of Clark County. The trade group hit its peak of just over 1,000 members with 23,660 employees in 2007. It hit bottom in 2011, when it had just half that number of businesses in its membership rolls, employing only 7,580 workers. Much of the loss came from its “associate” members, rather than full members that went out of business or had no money for memberships, said Avaly Scarpelli, the association’s executive director. The association now has 600 members with 11,480 employees, giving it a recovery rate that exceeds that of both state and national industry associations, she said.

Those that survived are seeing better times, Scarpelli said. It’s not all new construction, either. Clark County reported approving 51 residential remodel permits in March, up from 35 permits in March 2014.

“Our builders are extremely busy right now,” Scarpelli said.

With the peak construction season approaching, “builders are feeling they are going to have even more projects,” she said.

The surge in demand appears to be helping all market segments. Luxury homebuilder Tracy Doriot, the building industry association’s vice president, said he’s meeting with three clients interested in building large houses at $750,000 to $1.1 million. Two of the prospective buyers are from the Los Angeles area, and are looking for lower taxes and an escape from big city life; the third wants to move up from a smaller home.

“I haven’t seen that in four years,” said Doriot, whose Doriot Construction specializes in houses of 4,000 to 10,000 square feet. “I’m guardedly optimistic that the custom home market is making a comeback.”

During the recession, Doriot said, he survived by building smaller houses and by doing “way more remodels than we would have liked.”

Vancouver-based Urban NW Homes builds houses in a wide price range and is seeing strong demand across the board, said Aaron Helmes, the company’s co-owner.

Prices have “definitely recovered,” he said. “We’re getting back to the point where (subcontractors) and general contractors are able to make a fair profit. The market is strong, but I wouldn’t call it out of control.”

Hot market

The Rondeaus, both 61 years old, are catching the wave. They moved from Corvallis, Ore., to Camas in 1996. When they sold their CAESY Education Systems, a dental patient information program, in 2004, the couple were looking for a new challenge. Building housing “seemed like an interesting thing to try to do,” Bob Rondeau said.

They named their company Waverly Homes after the street in Albany, Ore., where they had launched their first dental business.

They bought land in the Mount Vista area in 2009 and created 69 lots, developing most but selling the final 15 to another developer. Home sales were slow in a tough economy when financing was tight, but the Rondeaus managed to build and sell houses ranging from $275,000 to $375,000 over several years. It wasn’t until about two years ago, Liz Rondeau said, that demand started to pick up.

The 16-acre Hidden Glen site off Northeast 78th Street and 30th Avenue, which they bought in 2013, had been approved by Clark County for a subdivision. The first few houses, including a model home, are built or under construction. They are offering three models, each with three choices of front facades and four color packages. Appliances and other amenities that are often sold as add-ons are included in the price, reducing short-term financial pressures on new homebuyers because the extras can be included in the home loan. The houses will range in size from 1,800 to 2,068 square feet and sell for about $250,000 to $270,000.

The first phase will include 72 houses, built six at a time. The Rondeuas expect that construction of all three phases, totaling 155 houses, will take about four years.

But just two years from now, they expect to start work on another 15-acre subdivision in Washougal.

Their work has taken on a strong family dimension, with two of their three daughters and one son-in-law involved. Their oldest and youngest daughters — Sara Sheets, 33, and Leslie Simpson, 29 — both are brokers for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and have focused on selling properties in the family’s subdivisions.

Simpson’s husband, Brett, works for Waverly Homes as a development project manager. Middle daughter Jacqueline Myers is a Vancouver veterinarian.

The Rondeaus say they’ve found their niche.

“We like the process of finding land and building housing,” Bob said, adding, “We enjoy working for our family.”

Adds Liz: “It’s fun to be able to build a beautiful house that is affordable and that people need.”