Gig Harbor Undressed

Gig Harbor’s open houses

Here’s the weekly look at open houses in the Gig Harbor area.  Only 10 this weekend, spread out pretty evenly between Saturday and Sunday.  View details on the interactive map.  The information here is taken from the NWMLS and is reliable but not guaranteed.  If you are interested in any of these homes, or any other homes that you see for sale around Gig Harbor, or if you are looking to sell your home in Gig Harbor, please give me a call.  I’d love to discuss with you my services and see if we’d be a good match.

This is the view (one of the views) from the house I have listed at 19 Point Fosdick Drive.  It was open last week, and I’d love to show it to you if you’re looking for a view home in Gig Harbor for under $600k. 

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Better view of Gig Harbor’s History Museum

Thanks to John Holmaas and Sue Loiland, I got a much better view of Gig Harbor’s new History Museum that is being built on Harborview Drive.  Gig Harbor, WA, is an amazing little town with an amazing history of fishing and boat building.  We are in the process of building a newer, larger, more complete History Museum, and my “behind the scenes” tour today gave me a new appreciation for how this building will benefit our community.

The museum, which is hoping to open in Spring of ‘09, will be a wonderful place for Gig Harbor families and those visiting Gig Harbor to get a hands on experience of our town.  The old Shenandoah, built in 1925 I believe, has been parked in its final resting place, and plans are to have it restored professionally and have opportunities for Gig Harbor museum visitors to work along side the master boat builders to help restore her.  There will be two photo screens (scrims I think they were called) showing pictures of the area, one being dedicated to photos of the Narrows Bridges.  There will be a research center with computer kiosks, a gift shop, a permanent gallery and a roughly 1000sf gallery to host traveling exhibits, as well as a state of the art artifact storage and viewing room.  Other plans hope to have a boardwalk along the water behind the museum from Austin Creek Estuary Park, and maybe even an opening of Donkey Creek.  A one room school house, last used in the 1940’s, will be moved from 38th St in Gig Harbor to the museum grounds, and hopefully even used again for our local school kids to experience.  My mind is swimming with new information, way more than I could ever put in words here.  Bottom line is that this museum will be way more than a place to see some old photos of Gig Harbor (though those will be there too), but it will be a community gathering center, a place where you can actually experience Gig Harbor’s history.  Be sure to check out the History Museum’s website to find out more information.

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2009 Gig Harbor Photo Calendar

Each year I produce a photo calendar of Gig Harbor.  It’s a high quality, 11″x17″ calendar that features some of the most incredible photos that I’ve taken during the year (many are featured on this site).  Cost for the 12-month calendar is $15.  I’ll deliver if you’re in the Gig Harbor area, otherwise I’ll ship it out to you and simply ask that you pay for the cost to ship it.

As my Gig Harbor calendars have become more and more popular, I’ve had to make the decision to do a bulk order and only order as many as are pre-ordered.  I’m not a professional calendar maker, so it’s too expensive to order them first and then try to sell them off.  I’ve only seen one other calendar featuring Gig Harbor photos, so this is one of your few chances to get a collection of great photos from our area. 

I’ll be placing the order on December 4th to get the calendars here in time for Christmas.  If you’d like to purchase a 2009 Gig Harbor Calendar, please send me an email to mthomson@kw.com and let me know how many you’d like.  If you’re a local photographer and you’d like to have some of your photos considered for submission in the calendar, please email me a copy of the photos you’d like considered with a notice in the email that you’re giving me permission to use the photos for the calendar! 

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Gig Harbor musician to play in Tacoma

The Internet is a funny thing.  Social media is a relatively new concept for me, but I’m amazed at how it works.  I was viewing some photos on Flickr, came across a fun photo of an old bus, emailed the photographer, and came to find out that a Gig Harbor-raised musician, now living in Alaska, is touring on that bus. 

Marian Call (who grew up in Gig Harbor as Emily Pew) will be playing at the Mandolin in Tacoma on Saturday November 1 from 8-10pm.  You can view her photo page here, and see more about her music on her own website.

Photo courtesy of Marian’s photo page.

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Halloween activities in Gig Harbor

There are several Halloween and Harvest celebrations in Gig Harbor this week.  Our baby girl got to experience her first ever pumpkin patch this past weekend when the University Place Fire Dept hosted a petting zoo and pumpkin patch.  Good fun!  I’ve received the following information from various sources, so I’m hoping they’re correct.  If you know of additional activities, please contribute!  Here are the Gig Harbor activities that I’m aware of:

1. Tuesday Oct 28th–Fox Island Alliance Church Harvest Festival (6-8pm)
2. Friday Oct 31st–Harbor Covenant Church Festival (5-7pm)
3. Friday Oct 31st–Believer’s Fellowship Festival (6:30-8:30pm) [I'll be at this one!]
4. Friday Oct 31st–Gig Harbor Trick or Treat (3-6pm) [We'll be here too!]

If you’d like to see a map of all of these events, click here.

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Gig Harbor view home open tomorrow

There are only 11 open houses in Gig Harbor this weekend, but they’re 11 good ones!  Tomorrow (Saturday October 25th) I’ll be hosting an open house at what I believe to be Gig Harbor’s best view home value.  Over 3100 square feet of beautifully remodeled home, large fenced yard, huge bonus room, large home office, and amazing views for only $599,000.  I don’t think that you can find view properties in Gig Harbor with views as wide open as these at this price, and in a cost per square foot comparison, I doubt you can find any Gig Harbor view homes this low.  Value is created not only by low price, but more so by what you get for that price.  This gorgeous view home on Point Fosdick Drive not only gives you a great house with a great floor plan, not only do you get amazing Puget Sound views and views of Mt Rainier and the Olympic Mountains and views of Fox Island, but you get this at a great price.  I’d love to meet you at the house tomorrow from 1-4pm.  Please come by to say hi.  Click here for an interactive map of all of the open houses in Gig Harbor this weekend.  Information is taken from the NWMLS and is reliable but not guaranteed.

All of these photos are from the house at 19 Point Fosdick Drive that will be open Saturday from 1-4pm!

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Top 10 Reasons to move to Gig Harbor

Lots of people have considered–or are considering–moving to Gig Harbor.  Understandable.  Here are my top 10 reasons why relocating to Gig Harbor is a good idea:

For reasons 5-10, you’ll have to check out dmontesino’s photo page.  These are just a few of the amazing fall color photos he took at the mouth of Gig Harbor Bay and Henderson Bay in North Gig Harbor.  These photos are published here with written permission from the photographer.  Please respect his amazing work and do not use his photos without his permission.  If you’re ready to move to Gig Harbor now, let me know, I’d love to help

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Gig Harbor’s real estate market overview

I had the pleasure of speaking at a financial symposium at Lighthouse Christian School in Gig Harbor last night.  Erik Ogard and Steve Skatrud from Russell Investments, Leo Bundick (VP of Venture Bank), Tane Cabe (Owner of East Bay Mortgage), Michael Diaz (Windermere), and myself were asked to present a brief overview of our thoughts on our current economic market.  Here are the thoughts that I gave regarding Gig Harbor’s real estate market.

• When a market shifts, 3 types of people emerge.  Unnecessarily pessimistic, unrealistically optimistic, and those who respect the situation but seek the opportunities.  I’m choosing to be the 3rd.
• The average person is in their home for 5-7 years.  Take a look at the chart showing Gig Harbor home sales for the past 8 years (for this chart I’m using Gig Harbor and Fox Island, not Key Peninsula…these are single family homes and condos).  Yes prices have gone down recently.  Yes they are still going down.  But look back 6 years.  We’ve gone up 36% in 6 years.  The media won’t tell you this, but that’s good.
• You CANNOT sell high and buy low at the same time.  Buy up in a market like this.  Sell your $400k home for $360k, lose $40k, and buy that $600k home for $540k and save $60k.  If homes in Gig Harbor take a 10% hit, doesn’t that make sense?  Which home will appreciate more when the market swings?  The higher priced home, most likely.
• This is a crisis of confidence more than it is a housing crisis.  Folks sit on the sidelines and wait to see when we’ll hit bottom.  Problem is, you won’t know we’ve hit bottom ’til we start going back up, and at that point thousands of others who were sitting on the sidelines with you will be back in the game, prices will be going up, and seller concessions will be gone.
• This chart shows how many months of housing inventory Gig Harbor has had during 2008.  You can see inventory is dropping, a good indicator that the market may be shifting back.  Please note as well that we still have over 15 months of housing inventory, and 6-9 months is generally considered a stable market.  We’re averaging over 21 months for the year.  That means Gig Harbor is still deeply entrenched in a buyers’ market, and most likely will be for quite a while. 
• Real estate is local…hyper local.  Your real estate market is the house you have to sell and the house you want to buy.  The surrounding market provides guidelines and clues, but they aren’t your market.  Sellers, use the homes around you as warning signs for where to price and how to condition your home.  Buyers, use the inventory to pick the perfect house and get a deal.  Folks say “nothing is selling.”  Wrong.  From October 1-October 21, 20 homes have recorded as sold in Gig Harbor.  7 of those 20 sold in less than 45 days.  4 of those 7 sold in less than 10 days.  Things are selling.
• Eric Engelland of the Rorbaugh-Engelland Group gave me this rough statistic.  At Gig Harbor’s median home price (between $400k-$425k), every 1% hike in interest rates nullifies a 10% drop in price.  It’s a rough number, but an interesting guideline.  So while you’re waiting for that $400k home to drop to $360k, if the rates go from 5.25% to 6.25% you’ve gained nothing.  Take a look at the national rates over the past 35 or so years.  We’re REALLY low still, but seeming to rise slightly.  Be careful about waiting to buy a home.  Prices will most likely come down, but interest rates could make that cheaper house less affordable!
• My final thought…houses are still HOMES.  You are sheltered in them.  You make memories in them.  You build community in them.  Yes, a house is an investment, but it’s more than a financial investment.  It’s an emotional one as well.  Is now the best time to buy?  For some yes, for others no.  Is now a good time to buy?  I think it always is.  As I’ve written before, I personally bought near the peak of the market.  Do I regret that? NO!  I sold my previous house for a higher price than what I could now, so that helps (though I’d rather buy up when the market is down, not up).  More importantly I got to bring my baby girl home to our new house in our new neighborhood with our new neighbors.  You can’t price that.

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on my thoughts.  Agree, disagree?  Am I missing something or right on?  I’d like to know your take on our housing market.

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Gig Harbor Photos

I love taking pictures of Gig Harbor.  So does my friend John.   He’s better at it though, and I wish I could get images like he does.  I am thankful that he posts his photos on his Gig Harbor photo blog, though.  I’m also grateful he lets me use his photos.  Here’s some examples.  We both went walking in Gig Harbor recently, and took some of the same photos.  It wasn’t a planned thing, we didn’t do it together, but we got some similar images.  I’m not saying which pictures belong to whom, but I bet you can guess.

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Gig Harbor and Peninsula Cross Country

My wife and I both love cross country (long distance running).  Gig Harbor High School has one of the state’s most dominant programs, as the girls are gunning for their 4th consecutive state title and the boys are again looking to be a top 5 team.  Peninsula, coached by long-time GHHS coach Joel Wingard, is quickly building the tradition that the Tides enjoy and becoming a team to watch in the 3A classification.  We got to head over to Wrights Park in Tacoma this weekend and watch Gig Harbor and the Peninsula Seahawks compete in a large invitational.  The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the leaves were changing colors, temps in the mid 50’s.  Doesn’t get much better for high school cross country.  If you recognize any of the kids in the photos or if you have some inside knowledge on the Gig Harbor or Peninsula cross country teams, please add it to the comments!

If I’m not mistaken, that’s Luke in the front…his dad owns Phil’s Landscaping in Gig Harbor.  His uncle has one of the most beautiful dahlia and sunflower gardens in the Harbor. 

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