Attention Buyers: The Wait Is Over

The Days of Low Inventory Are Gone

 

This month, it’s hard to ignore the sense of uncertainty that many people are feeling. Economic shifts, market adjustments, and broader social concerns are creating a landscape that can feel daunting. As always, my goal is to help you navigate these changes with clarity and insight.

 

When I wrote my piece last month, the housing markets on Bainbridge Island and all around the Puget Sound region had been experiencing a rebirth of sorts. The busyness in the business was so tangible in my experiences with clients that I used “Déjà Boom” in the subject line, focusing my narrative on how buyer activity was, well, booming again after a sluggish last half of 2024.

 

While the national conversation is heavy and a shifting economic landscape, the Bainbridge Island housing market continues to show resilience and there are sellers experiencing success in their first week on the market with buyers ready to compete for their contract. While agents and consumers watching the market currently describe it as sluggish, the data tells us something different:

• 68 listings were active in April. Except for a few months in the summer and fall of 2024, we have not seen this many active listings on Bainbridge Island since the summer of 2019.
• 74 new listings were posted in April. You have to go back to May of 2019 to find a month that had this many new listings in one month.

Clearly, my “deja boom” was – unbeknownst to me then – a prediction of the amount of inventory about to come available. So how did the buyers react?

• There were 33 pending sales in April, more than any April between 2020 and 2024, and not too much below the average of 39 seen from 2015 to 2019.
• 10 of the month’s 27 sales sold in a week or less and for an average of 5.1% over asking price. Granted, most of these sales went pending in March, so this is a lagging metric showing the activity that was the inspiration for my last newsletter.

 

Looking at those two sets of bullet points, there is both a silver lining and an explanation for the feeling of sluggishness:

• Buyers are still buying homes at a “normal” pace, which shows they are investing in Bainbridge Island real estate despite the high costs of goods and borrowing money.
• The market is much more balanced than we experienced during the frenetic pandemic. Buyers are increasingly bringing contingencies in their offers, allowing them to proceed with their purchase with caution and thoughtfulness. And sellers are experiencing more market time, as was normal before 2020, when it was expected that a home might take a few weeks or months to sell.

In my previous career as a middle school science teacher, I taught my students to use facts and data to understand and explain the world around them; educators frame this as using “evidence to support claims.” If you hear someone claiming how slow the activity is and that “homes are just sitting on the market," ask them for the evidence to support their claim.

As always, I’m here to do just that. So what’s my claim based on last month’s evidence? We may just have seen the years-long plague of low inventory come to a very abrupt end.

 

Please check out my Bainbridge Market Report below to learn about all of last month's metrics and trends.

 

Thanks,

Jason

 

P.S. Sharing the love of some clients

Jason was very patient with us with numerous home showings and never pushed us into a decision. He reworked multiple items of the contract which we were very hesitant to sign and made sure we were able to write an offer that protected our privacy while showing the seller we were serious and capable. Definitely a huge plus! We also appreciate that Jason is very involved in the community (and supports the Robotics club!), and if he has a small gift for you, you better start clearing some space!

       - Paul & Christine Chapman