Pending sales of homes and condos in Pierce County increased compared to last year at this time as home buyers spent March snapping up properties in the lower price ranges.

The county counted 1,043 pending sales in March, up almost 3 percent from a year ago, according to figures released Monday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Low interest rates, a new $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers and more training for real estate agents on how to navigate sales of foreclosed and bank-owned properties have spurred sales of less-expensive properties, local real estate agents said.

“We’re still seeing a lot of sluggish (sales) in the $500,000, $400,000 and even $300,000 range, but below that things are pretty good,” said Tom Hume, a real estate agent with David Gala and The Hume Group in Tacoma. “It’s excellent below $150,000 – it’s actually a seller’s market if you’re in that price category.”

Sales of the lower-priced homes helped push down Pierce County’s median home price to $228,375 last month – 12 percent below where it was a year ago and down from February’s median price of $239,950.

The median means half of the homes sold for more and half for less.

The county’s median home price peaked at $285,000 in fall 2007. Before March, the county’s median home price had stayed the same or increased month-over-month (though not year-over-year) for four months.

Karen Grams’ home-sale, home-purchase story is reminiscent of the real estate heyday of a few years back – but it all happened last month.

Grams, 63, and a nurse, wanted to move, but said she was skeptical of whether her South Tacoma house would sell. Still, she listed it in March, expecting to wait for a buyer through the spring and the summer.

“I put it on the market March 2 and sold it March 3. The first person who came to see my house liked it,” she said. “I still periodically pick my chin up off the floor.”

Grams sold her three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house for $245,000 to a young couple with a new baby. It was their first home. She then made on offer on a 1950s North Tacoma rambler the same week.

Though her house sold for less than the $265,000 she paid for it a little more than two years ago, Grams is still more than satisfied. She paid $245,000 for her new home, one she says would have been much more costly in a different market.

“It’s all relative,” Grams said. “It all went so smoothly, I’ve just got to believe it’s meant to be.”

Certainly Grams’ experience is far from the norm in a buyer’s market where many for-sale homes have been languishing for months.

But Kevin Mullin, a broker with Windermere Professional Partners in Tacoma, said there are sweet spots in the county – Central Tacoma and Spanaway for example – where lower-priced homes are selling fast, some even with multiple offers.

“If you are in Central Tacoma with a home around $200,000, you have a very marketable product. It’s $250,000 in North Tacoma and $200,000 in Spanaway,” Mullin said.

The inventory of homes and condos for sale also continued to drop, something those in the real estate industry regard as good news as declining supply tends to bolster home prices. The 6,200 active listings in March represented a 22 percent decline in active listings in the same months a year ago.

In King County the median home price fell by 17 percent in March to $335,000. Pending sales were down 11 percent from the same month last year and inventory was down 8 percent.

Kelly Kearsley: 253-597-8573

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