Archive for July, 2008
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Jul
29
Posted by Matt Thomson
I’ve grown tired of all the negative news these days. What do you hear about real estate? FORECLOSURES! That’s fine for the 0.7% of all loans that are in foreclosure in our state, but what about the 99.3% of folks who are doing just fine? Now that it’s campaigning season, negativity is rampant.
This site is dedicated to the good news of Gig Harbor. If you’ve got any fun stories, know of a neighbor or somebody who did something cool, let me know. I want to pep up our community. Bad news is for the birds…like this one:
Is this post just a way to get to feature this picture? Not really. We saw this guy (a heron I think) swoop in from the Gig Harbor bay up into this tree. Because of the way the sun was shining, I couldn’t see my view finder, so I just pointed and blindly clicked. Of the 20 or so shots I got, and after a bit of tinkering with the brightness and contrast, this is the best one I could end up with.
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Jul
28
Posted by Matt Thomson
Our society tends to be obsessed with before and after photos, so I’m going to feed that obsession. When my wife and I bought our home nearly one year ago, many of the windows were bare. Our house is quite private, so we weren’t too concerned about it. This summer, however, has shown us a whole new purpose for window coverings. It gets HOT in our house.
So we called Greg and Karen Ragan at The Country Heart Custom Window Blinds, and WOW what a difference! If you’re in Gig Harbor, Port Orchard, or any of the surrounding areas and you’re looking for window treatments, or window coverings, or blinds, or whatever you call them, give the Ragans a call (253-265-1885). WAY less expensive than the big companies, and a real quality product and professional installation (Karen handles the style side of things, Greg does the install). Take a look at what it did for our house.
**Disclaimer–The towels were temporary. I had to do something to minimize the heat. You can see how hard the sun is beating in on the kitchen window with no coverings.
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Jul
28
Posted by Matt Thomson
It’s Monday again. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know that Mondays are the day that I review the Gig Harbor real estate market in some form of real estate report. If you’re new to the blog, welcome, and now you know that Mondays you can expect a report on what’s going on with real estate in Gig Harbor.
I’ve talked about “Absorption Rate” before. The Absorption Rate is calculated by taking the total number of homes currently active on the market, and dividing that by how many homes actually sold in the past month. This shows us how many months it would take to sell off all of Gig Harbor’s current housing inventory assuming no other homes came on the market. A low Absorption Rate (under 6 months) indicates a strong sellers’ market. A high Absorption Rate (over 9 months) indicates a strong buyers’ market. In my time as a Realtor in Gig Harbor, I’ve seen it as low as 4+ months, and over 20 months recently. Currently, Gig Harbor’s absorption rate is at 15.3 months. This indicates that if you’re looking to buy a home in Gig Harbor, there are some great deals to be had. If you’re needing to sell, this can be a tough time and it’s extremely important that your home is in tip-top shape and your marketing plan and pricing strategies better be pretty good, too. I’d love to help in those areas if you’d like.
The following charts show (week by week) the total number of homes for sale in Gig Harbor, Port Orchard, and the Key Peninsula, as well as the total number of homes pending sales in those areas. You can see Gig Harbor had 500 homes on the market on January 1st, and we’re now up to 782. If you have any questions on this report, feel free to contact me. If you’d like a free list of all the homes for sale and all of the homes recently sold in your area, and you’d like this list emailed to you without having to talk to any salespeople, go to my sidebar and sign into the Home Search Home Scouting Reports. It’s fun information whether you’re thinking of buying or selling or not.
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Jul
25
Posted by Matt Thomson
There are several open houses being held in the Gig Harbor area this weekend, but none so important as the one that I’ll be holding open (#11 on the map)! While the address says Port Orchard (4576 SE Keystone Ct, Port Orchard), you’re only 12 minutes away from Gig Harbor’s YMCA, Costco, and other amenities of Gig Harbor North (that’s much closer than many parts of Artondale and Cromwell in Gig Harbor). It’s 3bedroom (4 actually, but a 3 bed septic) with a HUGE bonus room. Don’t forget the 3 car garage, views of the Olympics and Mt Rainier, and great proximity to a boating lake. Only $468,950, open Saturday 1-4pm.
Click here or on the photo of the home for the complete list of open houses this weekend.
Information is from the NWMLS and is reliable but not guaranteed.
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Jul
24
Posted by Matt Thomson
When people find out I sell real estate, they almost always ask me about one of two things: Homes currently on the market or homes that recently sold. Most people love keeping up with the real estate market, learning what homes are for sale and what homes are selling. Most people aren’t real excited about talking to a Realtor though to get that information…they’d rather get it on their time on their terms.
Great! Here’s how. “Home Scouting Report” is a secure, personalized online home search tool that allows you to see all the listings from all the companies without talking to a lot of Realtors (like me). Click here to arrange your no-cost secure online access
“Smart Search” is a great way to see what homes in your area of interest have actually been selling for and is bundled together with Home Scouting Report. Click here to see a demo and to arrange your no-cost secure online access.
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Jul
22
Posted by Matt Thomson
Our society seems to be obsessed with BIG. Cars are getting BIGGER. Take out meals are getting BIGGER. Prices are getting BIGGER. And in Gig Harbor, houses seem to be getting BIGGER.
In a quick search of new construction homes in Gig Harbor (homes built in ‘08), there are currently 67 homes for sale with a median size of 3214 square feet. Looking at home SALES in Gig Harbor (any single family home that has sold thus far in ‘08), the median size is 2400 square feet.
This makes me wonder if new home builders are building too much. If you were to be looking to buy a house in Gig Harbor, what would you look for? What matters most to you? Do you like huge houses on small lots, or would you be willing to sacrifice size of the home for a larger lot? What about the new homes that are starting to pop up that are smaller homes on nearly non-existent lots? I’m curious to hear your thoughts on size.
Thanks to Kate O’ for the photo of the homes.
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Jul
21
Posted by Matt Thomson
It’s Monday. Mondays are real estate market review days here on GigHarborUndressed. A tool that I’ve had a lot of positive feedback on is my home sales map. Each month I try to map all of the homes that have sold in Gig Harbor, and include final asking price (not necessarily original asking price), the final sales price, and how many days the home was on the market. Click here to access the July solds map for Gig Harbor home sales thus far.
13 single family homes (and 0 condos) have sold thus far in July. Homes are selling at a median price of $365,000 (97.3% of asking price) and are on the market for a median of 142 days (partially skewed by a few new construction sales). Gig Harbor real estate usually picks up towards the end of the month, so I’ll re-post this in a few weeks. If you’d like any further information on home sales in your neighborhood, just ask. I’m here to help.
I usually post an image of the map and say “click on the map,” but I realized that I have more beautiful photos of Gig Harbor than I know what to do with, and the map images aren’t all that pretty, so I figured I’d ditch the map images and put pretty pictures of Gig Harbor instead. Just for fun, you can click on the photo to access the map. Thanks again to Jan Pauw for the photo of the Gig Harbor Blessing of the Fleet.
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Jul
19
Posted by Matt Thomson
One of the great things about living in Gig Harbor is that you get the small town lifestyle, yet you’re still quite close to the big city events. We got some tickets to the Seattle Mariners game today versus the Cleveland Indians. From our house in North Gig Harbor it took 53 minutes to drive up to SafeCo Field in South Seattle. Not bad. Our tickets looked pretty good online…section 137 row 6. What we didn’t know until we got there was that section 137 is right behind the visitor’s dugout, and the first 4 rows are the dugout…so we were in the 2nd row! Sunny skies, 72 degrees, and baseball. What a great day! The M’s are horrible this year, and although they gave up 9 runs before they had an out in the 3rd, it was still fun. Here’s a few photos from the game.
Oh yeah…it was 80’s day at the ballpark.
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Jul
18
Posted by Matt Thomson
With the Gig Harbor Art Festival happening this weekend, I wasn’t sure whether agents would all try to hold open houses to capture all of the visitors of if nobody would hold opens so they could enjoy the festival. I’ll take B. Only 9 open houses in Gig Harbor this weekend, and I had to go out to Olalla to get the number that high!
Click on the map for details.
Information is from the NWMLS and is reliable but not guaranteed.
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Jul
18
Posted by Matt Thomson
I speak with a lot of folks who want to move to Gig Harbor, but don’t think that they can afford it. Sometimes they’re right. Here’s a great option. We just lowered the price on a house at 4576 Keystone Ct in Port Orchard. This home is 12 minutes from the Gig Harbor YMCA, Costco, Target, etc. Only 5 minutes to HWY 16. You’re also a stone’s throw from Long Lake recreation area, a great place for freshwater boating and water skiing. Views of the Olympics and Mt Rainier, new home (’05), large (2792sf, 3bds, office, bonus room), large fenced lot with gate for boat or RV parking, and a great location at the end of a cul-de-sac in a nice quiet, low traffic neighborhood. Priced at $468,950, you can get way more home for your money than if it were in Gig Harbor.
Click on the home’s photo for more information. Please give me a call if you’d like to view the home.
