Home prices all over the map, literally and monetarily, in Pierce County
Good news: A few more homes were for sale in April.
Bad news: The King County price creep continues in the surrounding area.
A closer look at the numbers shows some homes selling for below $300,000 in Pierce County as others push beyond $1 million.
Northwest Multiple Listing Service on Monday offered its roundup of April sales figures. According to the report, King County is still the eye-popping leader of the pack, at $725,000 for the median closed home sale price, up 16 percent from last year.
The price in Pierce County for April was $341,000, up nearly 15 percent from same time last year and ahead of Kitsap County, which was $335,000.
Two areas of Pierce County saw the median home sale price decline in April, compared with last:
▪ A wide area that includes communities surrounding Joint Base Lewis-McChord, including Steilacoom, DuPont, Ketron Island and part of Lakewood directly south of American Lake, with a 7 percent price dip to $324,000.
▪ The rest of Lakewood, at a nearly 2 percent drop to $280,000.
For Gig Harbor, the median sale price for single-family homes has climbed precipitously.
Have half a million dollars? That's what the median-priced home now sells for in the Gig Harbor area — the most expensive area in Pierce County to buy a home, NWMLS data show. That's up 12.6 percent from April 2017, when homes there sold for $56,000 less.
For that price, you could almost buy two median-priced homes in South Tacoma, where the median-priced home sold for $255,000 in April, up $45,000 from a year ago.
Browns Point and Northeast Tacoma come in at a close second after Gig Harbor, with homes going for the median of $465,000. Since last year, home prices have leaped by 33 percent — $115,000 more than the median home sold for in 2017.
For Thurston County, the median closed home sale price was $305,000, up 8.54 percent from last year after first rising above $300,000 in March.
Many counties in the report continue to see dramatic price gains year over year.
Grays Harbor County's median closed home sale price for April, $186,000, was nearly 20 percent above last year's price, with sales up nearly 30 percent.
Median condo closed sales prices in Pierce County were going for nearly half the price of what those in King County sold for in March — $221,500 vs. $446,500.
Year over year, Kitsap County's median condo closed sale price was up nearly 130 percent at $366,000. That's more than the median closed sale price in Snohomish County in April for condos at $336,000. King County's was at $446,500. Kitsap, Snohomish and King counties have a "very tight" inventory, according to NWMLS, with less than three weeks' supply.
Inventory also remains tight for homes. In Pierce County in April, it was at 1.10 month's worth, up from 0.97 in March.
In the meantime, now is the time to get help navigating the market.
Owners holding on to their homes might not realize the loan options they have "as a buyer on the other side," Rose Marie David, senior executive vice president and mortgage lending director of HomeStreet Bank, told The News Tribune on Monday.
"That doesn't mean there can't be challenge and difficulties," she said, "but opportunities are broader than they realize and there's guidance available, and if you take that up front, you're in a better position for negotiating."
As far as the local inventory goes, you can add at least one to the list: the HGTV Dream Home in Gig Harbor is on the market, listed at $1.7 million.
This story was originally published May 7, 2018 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Home prices all over the map, literally and monetarily, in Pierce County."