Kitsap Real Estate Blog

Robert Shiller Ponders the Future of The Housing Market Real estate investors, lenders, brokers and increasingly homeowners need to track home values more closely to make decisions that have outsize effects in their personal financial lives and collectively on the economy. One of the most watched housing indices is something called the Case-Shiller Index developed [...]

What does this mean for Kitsap real estate sellers and buyers. While home mortgage rates are more directly correlated with long term treasury securities short term interest rate increases will put upward pressure on those instruments.

The private investors haven’t returned yet. In 2009 and through the present in 2010 the GSEs purchased more than 90% of loans purchased and Moody’s noted since Q307, the Fannie and Freddie reported seven consecutive quarterly losses totaling $86.9Billion and $63.7Billion, respectively. So what, you ask, for Kitsap real estate?

The five properties that we had on the tour were chosen because our poll of area real estate agents had indicated that they were special values based upon their listing price. And guess what? Every one of those properties has gone under contract.

Jim Freeman, associate broker at Coldwell Banker Park Shore announced on February 15, 2010 the listing of the 144 acre Hansville Nursery land for sale. Also known as the Old Homestead Plat the owner, Olympic Property Group LLC, a subsidiary of Pope Resources Group, has operated the land as a Douglas Fir tree nursery for more than 20 years. Recent price and volume declines in the lumber industry forced a decision to shutter the nursery operation in 2009 and put the property on the market.

The National Association of Homebuilders and Wells Fargo publish research about the affordability of housing in all metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the country. The report for the fourth indicates that 63.6% of homes in the Bremerton/Silverdale MSA were affordable for the median income family. They report that the median income was $70,900 per year and the median home price was $232,000.

Buying a home successfully is a question of following a duplicatable system. It is possible to make some huge mistakes in buying, possibly costing you tens of thousands of dollars or sticking your family in a home that just will not work for them or you.

Conclusion: Inventories of foreclosures and bank owned homes in Kitsap County will continue to be the major influence on price. We are likely to see an increasing supply of Other Real Estate Owned (OREO) clogging up bank balance sheets and housing inventory for the foreseeable future.

But what will the market bottom look like? Many experts agree that the market top probably occurred in late 2006 or early 2007. Things still felt pretty hot with multiple offers on many properties and sellers were still pretty smug. It was several months after the peak before the majority of people really felt it. Could we be at a market bottom now or soon?

Absorption of space up to October of 2008 was acceptable but there is anecdotal evidence that everything halted severely after that. New construction plans have been put on hold indefinitely and a number of largely vacant buildings have been put up for sale. Landlords can expect to lose existing tenants more than gain and should look to manage their properties well until some sort of a turnaround.