FORKS — Carrol Lunsford talks good news in Forks and on the West End, which he sees as a real estate market unaffected by many of the woes of the rest of the North Olympic Peninsula.
“We’re a little over double of what we did last year,” Lunsford said. “The active market is under $200,000. Over that, it’s just sitting there.”
Lunsford, who started in Forks and West End real estate in 1980, said that while prices went up drastically elsewhere on the Peninsula, during that time, “ours were steady.”
“Last year was a horrible year. The worst we’ve seen since 1980,” he said of another economically challenged period when home mortgage interest rates soared to 15 percent.
“Now, we have really low interest rates,” he said.
“I think it’s the only thing keeping it alive.”
Another plus for the Forks and West End market, he said, is that the majority of his clients, perhaps 75 percent, are local residents.
Lunsford said he has noticed more retirees moving to the West End.
“It seems like we get a lot more than we used to because we have a lot better medical facilities,” he said.
Right now, he said, volume is at its lowest. He attributed that to a poor economy.
Northwest Multiple Listing Service figures show there were 16 homes on the West End market during the first quarter of this year.
That compares to 14 during the same period last year.
During the first quarter this year, three homes were sold for an average price of $201,800, compared to the same number of homes during the first quarter of 2010, average prices $283,300.
More people are changing their perception of the real estate market since the media reported that things were better, Lunsford said.
“Our average home buyer this year has been young adults,” he said, adding that some are just starting families.
His agency sold 24 homes last year, he said, “and that’s terrible.”
That compares with the 1990s when sales totaled between 80 and 90 homes a year, he remembers.
He said he has seen only five notices of foreclosures for the West End this year.
Economically speaking, Lunsford is upbeat, saying that the logging industry is still running steady along with prison jobs in Clallam Bay and Clearwater.
WEDNESDAY: Sellers leery, buyers looking for steals in Sequim-Dungeness Valley.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
