New home construction and existing home sales have continued to climb here for the first half of this year, and existing home sales also have risen at a brisk pace, continuing a multiyear rebound since the deep recession-triggered residential real estate market decline, market observers say.

The city of Spokane and unincorporated Spokane County issued a combined total of 454 building permits for single family homes, including townhomes, for the first six months of the year, up 37 percent compared with the year-earlier period.

Permit values, though, showed a more modest increase, with the average value through June of this year at $267,700, up less than 2 percent from the year-earlier permit value of $262,800.

Comparable year-to-date residential building permit totals for Spokane Valley weren’t immediately available.

Jim Frank, CEO of Liberty-Lake-based development company Greenstone Corp., says new home sales and construction are rising at all of Greenstone’s active developments in Spokane and Kootenai counties.

“Overall, we’re probably up about 10 percent from last year,” Frank says. “A lot of that relates to inventory. You’ve got to be out developing new phases and new lots.”

Greenstone recently broke ground on a new phase of the Morningside Heights subdivision in Spokane Valley.

“Some homes are presold and quite a few are speculative,” Frank says. “We’re making a multiple-stage commitment to buy lots there.”

Throughout its active developments, Greenstone plans to construct 200 to 250 homes this year, including 50 to 60 new homes in Kootenai County, Frank says.

Most of those will be in the $180,000 to $350,000 range. “We tend not to be in the lower quintile. Also, we don’t have a lot in the highest price points,” he says.

The entry-level market isn’t gaining momentum compared with the move-up markets, Frank says.

“More people, especially in the empty-nester and the under-30-years-old categories, are renting than used to rent,” he says. “That’s going to moderate gains to some degree, but I don’t expect it to get out of hand at all.”

A lot of young people are renting longer before they buy, he says. “That’s putting a dampening effect on products at lower price points.”

Spokane custom homebuilder Corey Condron, of Condron Homes LLC, says his company’s sales are up 25 percent so far this year, and July activity is at record levels.

“That bodes well for a strong fall,” Condron says, adding that the company may exceed its projection of 40 home sales in 2015, compared with 24 sales in 2014.

“I’m very optimistic for the third and fourth quarters of 2015,” he says.

Condron Homes specializes in constructing homes in the $350,000 range. Condron says his main target markets for the last two years have been empty nesters and baby boomers.

He says those buyers tend to want to downscale their living space, but move up in quality.

“They’re willing to pay $5,000 extra for quartz countertops,” he says.

A typical Condron-built, empty-nester home has two bedrooms and a daylight basement so it’s still big enough to accommodate visiting children and grandkids, he says.

Condron says the lot inventory here looks strong enough to supply the homebuilder industry for the near future.

“It’s different than it was a few years ago, when no one was creating lots,” he says. “The developer industry has filled that void.”

Existing home sales also have been growing.

The number of homes sold through the Spokane Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service during the first six months of the year totaled 3,130, up 23 percent compared with 2,552 homes sold during the year-earlier period.

Of those, 321 were new homes, compared with 301 new homes sold through the MLS during the year-earlier period.

The median sales for existing homes was $175,000 for the first half of the year, up from $165,000.

Bill Richard, a senior broker at Keller Williams Realty, says the inventory of listed homes is tightening, leading to multiple offers on some properties.

“The very best properties are going quickly,” Richard says. “If they’re in the right location and the condition is excellent and the price is in line, you can get an offer in short order and, in many cases, multiple offers.”

Richard says if current economic trends follow past cycles, sales should continue to head upwards for a few more years.

“We have a chance of a handful more years of the market doing well,” he says.

In the Kootenai County market, overall home sales were up 17 percent for the first half of the year, says Kim Cooper, a broker at Select Brokers LLC, of Coeur d’Alene, and a spokesman for the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors.

“Sales have been climbing steadily since 2012, and they’re accelerating,” he says. “We’re still a ways away from our historic high of 2005, but we’re ahead of every year since then.”

The median sales price was $200,000, for homes sold through the Coeur d’Alene Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service for the first six months of the year, up 9 percent compared with the year-earlier period.