It’s a simple matter of limited supply and big demand in Port Townsend and Port Ludlow, where Realtors say finding a home for much less than $180,000 is . . . well, good luck.
So it’s no real surprise to find the high-ticket property on the market — a $3.2 million gated estate owned by an “undisclosed” retired couple about four miles on South Bay Way north of Port Ludlow.
“It’s really hard to find anything like it,” says Seattle-based Windermere Real Estate/Northwest Inc. agent Bob Berg, who has the exclusive listing for the southeast Jefferson County property.
With 678 feet of sandy low-bank waterfront, the 4,000-square-foot Cape Cod-style, cedar-shingle home has a guest house, workshop, greenhouse and three-car garage.
It also boasts vast water and mountain views with a spring-fed estuary and pristine rose gardens.
All this on 18 acres.
“A magical seaside retreat at the very end of a rural woodland drive,” Berg states in the listing’s marketing remarks.
A 20 percent down payment — that’s $640,000 — gets you monthly payments of $14,535.
This home, like many others in the $1 million-plus price bracket, has been on the market for more than a year, but Berg is quick to say the home next door has sold for $1.5 million.
‘California equity’
While affordable housing is in short supply in East Jefferson County, people paying “California equity” cash for high-priced dwellings run aplenty.
“In the Port Townsend-Port Ludlow market, more than half are for cash,” says David Hammond, longtime Port Townsend Realtor with Coldwell Banker Forrest Aldrich Inc. Hammond also is president of Jefferson County Association of Realtors, representing the county’s 143 agents.
Typically, Hammond says, many buyers are younger retirees fleeing congested California for a piece of the good quality of life found in Port Townsend, Port Ludlow and Jefferson County points in between.
“They can sell the shoebox for $700,000 and move up here and buy something for less and put the rest in the bank,” says Hammond.
The cash-from-retirees trend could continue for four or five more years, as Hammond sees it.
