Interest by residents and Alaskans is helping prop up a housing market that saw a steep drop in home sales last year, Haines real estate agents said in recent interviews.

Real estate broker Jim Studley said in an April 29 letter to the Haines Borough that the local housing market dropped as much as 50 percent in total gross volume of sales in 2009 when compared to 2006-2008.

“We have advised our clients to anticipate a 10 percent decrease in the value of the home. With that thought in mind the majority of our clients have made appropriate reductions in their property to sell their homes, land or commercial holdings at this time,” Studley wrote.

But at about the time Studley was writing that letter, the market was improving, said Pam Long, who works for Studley’s company. “By April 10, we had done better than we did all of last year in total sales,” Long said.

Long’s last house sale was about 5 percent off its former market value, but a couple others have been on the mark, she said.

Long said she sees renters buying homes, and owners of modest homes buying bigger ones, partly because of the lowest interest rates on home loans in decades. “Values are going up or holding steady. Confidence is gaining already. I feel that way when I do a market confidence for people.”

Alaskans moving here for jobs are among the buyers, she said. “It’s people who already have jobs in Haines, even if they’ve only been here for two months.

Two exceptions to the rebound are sales of raw land and sales of second homes to Lower 48 residents. Sale of second-homes to southerners “has pretty much dried up,” Long said. “In 2009 and 2010, that’s the market that we lost.”

With the exception of waterfront, raw lands sales also are off, perhaps because interest rates for home loans are so low.

More expensive homes — including ones in the $300,000 range – are slowest to move, she said. “That’s a high price range for Haines salaries.”

Lifetime Haines residents Anna and Jim Jurgeleit put their split-level, three-bedroom home up for sale about two years ago, just as the housing market started to cool. Their custom home downtown, which includes a two-car garage, large lot and a separate apartment, listed first at $295,000.

They sold it recently for $259,000, to a Juneau professional with family ties to Haines. “We’re satisfied. We’re happy. We were right at the end of the high part of the market, but we weren’t ready to sell it then,” Jurgeleit said.

The Jurgeleits, who have college-age children, recently built a home more suited to their needs as a couple.

Real estate agent Glenda Gilbert said she agrees that there’s more interest and inquiries than a year ago, but said she’s also seeing more bargain hunters. “They’re looking for deals and foreclosures.”

Gilbert said she doesn’t see much of a change in value of local properties. If prices dropped 10 percent, they were from ones that were unrealistic, she said. She said she didn’t quantify the drop in her business last year. “I didn’t have time to analyze it, but I had a lot more time to pick blueberries.”

She agrees with Studley’s company that waterfront hasn’t lost value in the past year, but she said properties are staying on the market longer than they were a year ago. “If somebody has a house to sell, it has to be marketed to the utmost… Any seller today needs to be negotiable.”

She agrees with Studley’s firm that the second-home market has “dried up,” and that much of the interest she sees is from within Alaska, including from residents from Anchorage, Juneau and Fairbanks tired of city life.

Nevada and Nate Benton are in the market for a Haines home. Nevada was recently hired as a high school special education teacher. She worked for three years in Metlakatla after coming to Alaska from Colorado.

“We’re shopping around but we’ve got to wait for our Colorado place to sell first,” Nevada said. “If that sells, we’d buy here. I’m not tenured, so it’s a little risky (and) it’s risky to buy anything as an investment, but we want to call this home.”

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