EDITOR’S NOTE — This is the first in a four-part series on the state of the real estate market on the North Olympic Peninsula.
For a first-time homebuyer with an economically bulletproof job, pardon the real estate cliche, but,now is the time to buy.
For an investor with too much money looking for a screaming deal at low-interest rates, the buyer’s market is today an understatement.
But the reality is that an uncertain economy has made many fearful who would otherwise invest in a new or existing home.
“It can’t get any worse,” one longtime real estate veteran lamented.
Statistics from Washington State University’s Center for Real Estate Research are sobering.
In Clallam County, home resales were up 17.2 percent for the first quarter compared with 9.7 percent the same quarter a year ago.
Building permits were down nearly 31 percent during the same period.
The median home resale price fell more than 17 percent to $176,400 in Clallam County compared with last year’s first quarter.
Jefferson County saw almost 5 percent fewer homes resold, comparing the first quarters of this year and last.
At the same time the median price of a Jefferson County home fell 4.6 percent to $260,000.
Building permits were down more than 33 percent during the same period in Jefferson County.
Port Ludlow real estate was hit hardest in Jefferson County over the past four years, and the Port Angeles market is gradually recuperating from near-catastrophic low sales in 2009.
Recovery slow
While the market generally appears to have bottomed out across most of the Peninsula, the climb out of the hole is statistically slow going.
That is especially true compared with the 2005 real estate bubble that in effect doubled home prices in many of the Peninsula’s rural reaches, where they have dropped by as much as 25 percent since then.
Home prices from Brinnon to Port Ludlow to Port Townsend to Sequim, Port Angeles and Forks these days carry a general theme: flat to falling.
Peninsula veterans of the 1980 real estate downturn said that was the worst decline after interest rates skyrocketed.
The downturn of the late 2000s could turn out to be the longest, one longtime Realtor said.
Others said it could take at least three more years to see recovery, with many home buyers apparently delaying their retirements that long, a result of the bad economy.
■ Jefferson County’s median price fell from $269,000 in 2009 to $265,000 in 2010, according to Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
■ The number of units sold in Jefferson County in 2009 was 237 compared with 265 in 2010, NMLS reported.
■ Clallam County actually saw the median price of a home rise in 2010 to $210,000, up from $185,000 in 2009.
■ Clallam County recovered from an extremely adverse year in 2009 when only 60 units were sold compared with 378 in 2010, the report showed.
■ Despite the downturn, in 2010, Jefferson County real estate agents sold three homes priced at more than $1 million while one high-end home of more than $1 million was sold in Clallam County the same year.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
