Bainbridge Island Real Estate Market Report: July 2024

Are These the Good Ol' Days?

We've settled in at a safe speed of travel

If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while, you may recall that when the market shifted starkly in July of 2022, I used changing motorcycle speed as the metaphor for the changing pace of the local housing market. 

In that newsletter I opined, “So here we are in the summer of 2022, with the motorcycle – the housing market – having backed off the gas, hitting the brakes, and slowing down. To what speed? Only time will tell.” 

So here we are, two years later, and time did, in fact, tell us what speed we would end up settling at; the market today is moving at about the same speed as the few years prior to 2020. Let’s call that a safe and steady 50 mph. That’s not so fast that we could call it exhilarating, but it’s also not so abruptly slow that we can call it a crash.

Here are the metrics that allow me to make that claim: 

•  There were 87 active homes for sale in July, the highest monthly figure in five years. Buyers have choices again.  
• Months of Supply, which measures how long it would take to sell all the homes on the market at the pace at which homes are selling, should there be no new inventory, was 2.1 in July; this was typical for 2015-2019 (2020-2023 averaged 1.3). Generally speaking, homes are selling at a respectable pace. 
• The percentage of homes that sold in a week or less was just 39%, the lowest for a July since 2019. Most homes are not “flying off the shelf.” 
• The homes that sold in a week or less averaged “just” 1.6% over asking price, which is practically a rounding error and more indicative of the years prior to 2020 than what we got used to during the pandemic. With one or two exceptions every month, the days of crazy bidding are long gone. 

So here we are, traveling on a scenic WA State Highway at a boring old speed limit of 50 mph. While there still may be curves in the road ahead that could further slow us down (stock market movement, “recession” making its way into the headlines again), I’d like to think that the nice weather forecast (the Fed hinting at lowering prime in September) and a full tank of gas (lack of panic in the air) means we have projections of an uneventful (normal)  ride ahead of us – because sometimes, sticking to the speed limit is what keeps us safely on course. 

Please check out my Bainbridge Market Report below, complete with last month’s sales metrics.

Thanks,

Jason

P.S. Sharing the love of some clients

Special places take special agents. We knew we needed Jason because he is a top island agent with the perfect deep local knowledge for positioning our unique property for the perfect buyer. He took the time to ask critical questions about how to best support us and always helped us meet our objectives. Jason made the process as stress-free as possible by pacing all the moving pieces over a long period of time to hit our ideal timing. Jason has the right contacts for pre-market work, is smart, dedicated, detail-oriented, and calm. His skills gave us confidence in selling at the right time for top dollar. Jason definitely knows the local market best!

-- Jessie Jacques and Marcos Maestas