BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- Whatcom County’s housing market in 2009 eked out a nominal increase in sales, but not prices.
Lylene Johnson with The Muljat Group says the federal tax credit for first-time home buyers helped the county finish the year with nearly 2,000 sales – up half a percent from 2008.
“We finished the year very strong. I was really pleased to see it. November and December just blew the socks off the number of units sold,” said Johnson.
However, she adds the number of homes sold in 2008 was down significantly.
The median sales price in 2009 dipped 6.5 percent to almost $259,000.
Johnson attributes some of the decline to the rising number of short sales and bank-owned properties.
Bellingham fared better than other parts of the county, Johnson said.
“Bellingham turned out to have almost exactly the same number of units sold. Pricing was down a bit, but not horribly,” she said.
Bellingham sales were up 3.3 percent, and the median price down just 3.5 percent.
On the other end was Lynden, where sales fell 15.4 percent, and the median price sank 9.5 percent.
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