“What market?” says Judy Mayfield, head of sales for The Esplanade, the 162-unit project on the Foss Waterway, now nearing completion.

After two years of extolling the virtues of the nine-story luxury project, Mayfield and her staff have yet to close a deal on a single unit.

Tacoma’s condo market has suffered even more in the mortgage meltdown than other sectors of real estate.

According to a Northwest Multiple Listing Service analysis done for The News Tribune this week, 161 condos sold in Tacoma’s downtown area during the first nine months of 2007.

In the first nine months of this year, that number dropped by nearly half, to just 81 units.

During the same period, total residential sales in Pierce County dropped 31 percent.

Median prices of downtown condos dropped more, too, going from $274,000 in the first three quarters of 2007 to just $224,000 in that period this year. Median price means half the units sold for more money and half for less.

That’s an 18 percent drop in price, compared to an 8 percent drop in residential real estate countywide.

Condominium developers and brokers remain convinced the condos are a good deal – in fact, they say, what with low interest rates and high inventory, they are a better deal than ever.

The problem, they say, is getting people to commit in such uncertain times.

“The timing couldn’t have been worse,” Mayfield said. “Had the market not turned in the past year and a half, we would definitely have sold out by now.”

This weekend, a dozen new condominium projects in the downtown area, The Esplanade included, will open their doors for the sixth annual Tour of Urban Living sales event.

That’s fewer participants than in past years, said Debbie Bingham, the City of Tacoma community coordinator who helped organize the tour. The reduction is not because there are fewer new projects, Bingham said, but because some developers decided economic conditions were so bad it wasn’t worth putting up the marketing costs. (The News Tribune is one of the sponsors of the tour.)

About half of the projects on the tour are finished; the rest are in various stages of construction.

Prospective buyers and gawkers can pick up maps and brochures at the Pantages Theater on Saturday or Sunday and take themselves on self-guided tours to the dozen sales offices, where they can visit model units and check out the views, the granite countertops, the workout rooms and parking.

This year, several of the projects are offering special deals to “incentivize” buyers and get them to take the plunge.

Along with free lattes, the Esplanade will be offering $10,000 in cash to anybody who closes on a deal by the end of this month.

Based on the past, they won’t have to write many checks.

The market is becalmed, brokers say, as buyers wait for some sign that a bottom has been reached and sellers pray that prices will somehow recover.

“People are reluctant to commit in this market because they aren’t sure how long it might take to sell their house,” said developer Blaine Johnson. “Either that, or they’re concerned about general economic conditions and that they will not be able to get financing.”

Johnson developed the Vintage Y condo conversion project on Market Street and The Roberson on Ledger Square, next door to the Y, with 47 units.

The Roberson, one of the places on this weekend’s tour, is about one-third sold, Johnson said.

Last year, Johnson said, units at The Roberson were available to buyers only. Now managers have decided to offer a lease-to-buy option in which people are able to get a portion of their rent payment applied as a down payment.

“It’s a way for people to ease into a property,” Johnson said.

J.J. McCament, who worked with the City of Tacoma for six years to recruit condo developers to the downtown area and organized the first Tour of Urban Living, remains confident in the long-term condo market and says, bad as things may seem, the current situation is just a pause in the action.

“This is a normal predictable market correction,” she said. “I think that our pricing was starting to get out of adjustment with the wages in the area.”

Elsewhere in the real estate market, financing is a top concern. With condos, Mayfield says, not so much.

“The buyers we’re working with have more in the way of what to put down,” she said. “Typically, they’re not looking for nonconventional kind of financing.”

Johnson said financing difficulties are affecting the condominium market in two ways. “It’s more difficult to get money to build properties,” he said, “and it also is much more challenging to get financing to buy real estate.”

“It’s doable, and the interest rates are still low,” he said, “but the criteria are tougher.”

Like McCament, Johnson is convinced the condo market will recover and recover big.

“There is absolutely no doubt about the future values of real estate in urban areas, and certainly in the Pacific Northwest because of its inevitable growth,” he said. “We are going to see those values increasing.”

“This may sound like developer talk,” Johnson said, “but when things break loose, you will see properties that are built and ready to be occupied, then a lag of several years before next wave of development comes on line.”

Rob Carson: 253-597-8693

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