How Predictable is a Shifting Tide?

The Seasonal Rhythm Driving Bainbridge Island Home Sales 

 

If you spend any real time on Bainbridge Island, it’s worth getting acquainted with a tide log. Not necessarily for boating or clamming, but for something as simple as knowing if the tide is in out when planning a walk on the beach. After all, if you show up at high tide you might find yourself staring at the saltwater’s waves breaking against the shoreline and your dreams of a walk dashed away. 

 

That same rhythm – the push and pull of the tide – feels like a fitting metaphor for fluctuations in the housing market; patterns are there if you know where to look. Every spring, more homes come on the market. Buyers tend to get serious in March, May, August, and again in October. Closed sales trail behind, usually by a month or so, as contracts surf their way through escrow.

 

What few could have predicted heading into 2025, though, was the flood of inventory that’s hit our market so far this year. After years of scraping by with record-low listings, suddenly, we’ve seen 279 homes come up for sale thus far this year – on pace with the years before 2020. (For reference, both 2018 and 2019 saw 295 listings by this point in the year. The past three years? About 200.)

 

If you had told me this back in January, I would have said, “Finally!” and predicted a frenzy of long-waiting buyers coming out of the woodwork to scoop up these long-awaited options.

 

And I would have been dead wrong.

 

Instead, the number of closed sales year-to-date is just 141. That’s less than any year between 2012 and 2021 and, shockingly, barely above the numbers from 2022 to 2024 when there were far fewer homes available to buy.

 

Back in March of 2024, I wrote that a weird market is a normal market. And the thesis still holds: economic uncertainty messes with both the emotional and analytical sides of our decision-making. Every headline adds static. Every interest rate shift sends a ripple. Trying to predict behavior based on past data is, as one Windermere colleague put it, “just educated guesswork.”

 

On that front, at least, I was spot on.

 

Today’s buyers are still navigating high borrowing costs, maintenance expenses, insurance premiums, and the general inflation – and inflection – of daily life. And they’re doing it cautiously. Deliberately. Quietly.

 

So, what does that mean for the metric everyone watches: the average sale price? Well, it’s down 1.4% compared to this time last year. And from where I sit – on the listing side –  that’s putting even more weight on prices to come down.

 

What will the tide do for the second half of 2025? My guess is it’ll ebb with hesitation for some and flood with opportunity for others. It’ll all depend on the house, how well it’s priced, and which side of the negotiation table you’re sitting on.

 

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

 

Thanks,

Jason

 

P.S. Sharing the love of some clients

We highly recommend Jason for anyone looking to buy a home on the island. He is a true specialist and is very connected in the community. As we currently live on the East coast, we were initially attracted by Jason’s very professional and Jason is very organized and generous with his time. He was very patient and supportive with our timeline for finding a home. Jason helped us to crystallize our needs and wants through analysis of objectives and tradeoffs, and provided resources to understand communities and neighborhoods. Jason really listened and was very responsive. He was a consummate professional throughout the entire process and continues to be a great resource for service providers and community events.informative website. We were then further drawn in by our interactions with him both virtually and in person.

       - David and Brenda Friend