Market Watch: Spokane

Understanding your market is critical to being a successful real estate investor.  Your goal is to hold the property for a short time when flipping houses so, you shouldn’t expect huge market swings.  However, it’s good to know whether the market is appreciating or depreciating.  You especially don’t want to finish up and find out your comps have dropped 2-3% (or more).  While you should never count on appreciation, it certainly can be beneficial to the bottom line.

Too many new investors focus on national news.  Real estate is hyper-local though.  Unless you live in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Washington DC, etc. it doesn’t matter what is happening in those areas.  Your market will be different.  In fact, your market may vary from one side of town to the other.

All of that being said, we do watch what is happening around the country.  In our Market Watch series, we will share details of markets that look ripe for flipping houses.  You can compare these trends to your market and see how it stacks up.

Spokane Washington

Earlier this summer the Spokesman-Review touted how its market was thriving.  Sales of homes on less than one acre were 20 percent higher than last year, the Spokane Association of Realtors reported. Through the first half of the year, 2,469 homes were sold in the county, compared with 2,046 in 2012. The median sales price of all homes sold this year for the city in the first half was  $162,500, or 5.9 percent above last year’s $153,450. The newspaper also stated earlier this year that the market was showing sure signs of rebound, a perfect piece to the real estate investing puzzle. Home sales and prices continued to climb across the Spokane region throughout the year. The number of homes sold so far in 2013 jumped 13 percent compared to the same period a year ago. “Together, those two numbers are helping brokers feel good, that the market is coming back,” said Rob Higgins, executive officer of the Spokane Association of Realtors. Not to mention Spokane’s average home sale price is up 10 percent compared to a year ago. More good news for flippers.

Spokane was enticing enough that flipping gurus FortuneBuilders set their course for the city this fall. For weeks, a deluge of advertisements for these their seminars flooded Spokane radio stations. Call now, said the voice of Than Merrill (FortuneBuilders founder, ex-NFL player, former Flip This House star) and get two free tickets to learn how to rake in profit with very little risk. Spokane is the perfect market, he said, for house flipping. 

Again the important thing to remember is to know your market. Make sure you know what the housing market in your area is doing. Real estate is hyper-local.  You don’t have to be Alex Foley to know that Detroit and Beverly Hills are not the same.  Some markets will lag national trends.  Others will never see the wild fluctuations that ‘hot’ areas such as California, Florida, Arizona, and Las Vegas will see. But there are those isolated not-so-obvious hot spots like Spokane. Remember that flipping houses is particularly profitable when you get both Forced Appreciation and Market Appreciation.

And this just in: http://www.khq.com/story/24066288/10-cheapest-houses-for-sale-in-spokane.

To learn more about Part-Time REI visit us at http://part-timerei.com/

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Erik Hitzelberger has been Real Estate Investor since 2007. While learning the ropes in the market down-cycle, he now teaches others how to use his systems and leverage other people’s expertise to achieve their own goals.

Erik Hitzelberger – who has written 194 posts on Part Time REI.

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