Kitsap County home buyers are still gobbling up
houses faster than they can come on the market.
Home inventory remained very low in February, with 830 active
listings at the end of the month. That was despite an
uptick in new listings (15 percent higher than in February
2014).
The list for the peninsula was dominated by sales in North
Kitsap, with one Central Kitsap property slipping in at No. 6. You
can see a ranking of Kitsap median home prices by
area at
the bottom of this post.
Top Kitsap Peninsula Home Sales
These were the most expensive homes sold in Kitsap County in
2014, excluding Bainbridge Island. Details from public records and
online listings.
1. Rural Kingston — $1.23 million
Sale date: Oct. 3
Location: Fir Hollow Drive NE, off Highway
104, near Carpenter Lake
Description: 10 acres of woods and fields;
4,320-square-foot, five-bedroom house built in 2006.
Listing here.
2. Lemolo waterfront — $1.12 million
Sale date: April 25
Location: 15000 Block of Lemolo Shore
Drive, near the mouth of Liberty Bay
Description: Under an acre of “no-bank”
waterfront; 4,000-square-foot, three-bedroom house built in
1979. Listing
here.
3. Jefferson Point waterfront — $1.11
million
Sale date: Feb. 21
Location: 24000 Block of Jefferson Place
NE, on Jefferson Point, South Kingston
Description: 3.5-acre property facing;
3,520-square-foot, three-bedroom house built in 1970. Listing
here.
Today, I’m taking a look at the priciest homes sold last year,
based on county assessor’s records.
High-end homes sold at a good clip across Western Washington
in 2014, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing
Service.
In Kitsap County, 55 homes sold for more than $1 million. That
was up from 47 in 2013.
Now, I could just list the top 20 home most expensive home sales
in the county, but they would all be Bainbridge Island properties.
In fact, I could list the top 35 most expensive Kitsap homes sold,
and they would still all be on the island.
Instead, I’m breaking out the top 10 island homes sold, and
following up with the top 10 sold on the peninsula. Details are
from public records and online listings:
Top Bainbridge Island Home Sales
Bainbridge Island ranked as the sixth most expensive school
district in Western Washington in 2014, with a median single-family
home price of $620,000. These were the top island sales:
1. Tolo Road waterfront — $3.3 million
Sale Date: Sept. 19
Location: 4000 Block of Tolo Road, on the west
side of the island, across the water from Brownsville.
Description: 1.67-acre waterfront property
with moorage; 4,540-square-foot three-bedroom house, built in
2006. (Pictured above). Listing
here.
2. Sunrise Drive waterfront — $3.15 million
Sale date: Aug. 5
Location: 14000 Block of Sunrise Drive NE,
on the northeast side of the island, just south of Fay Bainbridge
Park.
Description: An acre of beachfront facing
Puget Sound; four-bedroom house 6,170-square-foot, four bedroom
house, built in 2000.
Listing here.
3. Pleasant Beach waterfront — $2.89 million
Sale date: June 6
Location: 3000 Block of Pleasant Beach
Drive NE, on Rich Passage at the south end of the island
Description: Less than an acre of low-bank
waterfront with moorage; 5,370-square foot, four bedroom house,
built in 2005.
Listing here.Continue reading →
The Western Washington real estate market ended 2014 with
fireworks.
Home sales logged in December 2014 outpaced sales made in
December 2013 by double digits, according to numbers released
by Northwest
Multiple Listing Service.
The trend held true in Kitsap County, where December
pending sales (306) were nearly 20 percent higher than at the
same time in the previous year. Closed sales (324) jumped by
29 percent. Unseasonably high sales were seen in nearly every
Kitsap community.
While sales surged, the available inventory of homes continued
to plunge. Just 205 homes came on the market in Kitsap in December.
Fewer than 900 homes were available for sale in the county, the
first time the inventory has dipped below 1,000 in at least the
past three years.
Hot sales and low inventory drove the months supply of homes
(the number of months it would take to sell off all the homes
available) down to 2.76. For comparison, King County’s months
supply was a rock-bottom 1.44, while Pierce County’s was at
3.02.
Despite dramatic swings in sales and inventory, Kitsap home
prices remained virtually unchanged.
The median price for a closed sale in December ($235,000) was
actually down from December 2013 ($244,000). The overall median
home price for 2014 fell $200 short of the 2013 price: $239,250 to
$239,450.
I’ll be writing a more in depth review of 2014 real estate
trends later this month when NWMLS releases its annual report. In
the meantime, here’s a big fat chart showing 2014 median home
prices for various areas of the county:
The busy holiday season is a time when home sales typically
taper off. Most buyers put off house hunting until the new
year.
Sales have indeed dropped in Kitsap, but activity is
still more intense than it was a year ago.
There were about 16 percent more closed sales and 5 percent
more pending sales in November than in November 2013, according to
a report from Northwest Multiple Listing
Service. The high number of closed sales make sense, given the
large number of pending sales
reported in the last few months.
The median home price for the county remained pretty much flat,
ending November at $245,000.
Inventory continued to drop. There were 1,086 active listings in
November, compared with 1,262 in October, and 1,483 in November
2013.
The months supply of homes (the number of months it would take
to sell off what’s available on the market) rose from 3.3 in
October to 3.7 in November, reflecting the sales slowdown. King
County’s rate, for comparison, was hovering around 2
months.
Kitsap’s real estate market is suddenly very lively.
For the first eight months of the year, pending sales
essentially mirrored 2013. In September, they made a somewhat
startling upturn.
A total of 493 residential sales were pending at the end of the
month, up from 352 in the previous year, according to fresh numbers
released by Northwest
Multiple Listing Service.
Pending sales also rose between August and September, at a time
when we usually start seeing sales tail off for the fall.
Most impressive, the jump in pending sales was
experienced across all Kitsap population centers:
