Following the trend of booming waterfront real estate sales in Seattle and Bellevue, overall sales of King County waterfront homes in 2010 were up significantly over the previous year.
Unofficial NWMLS statistics show 635 waterfront homes sold in King County for the year, in contrast to just 472 sales in 2009. This 35% increase in sales was badly needed after the struggles of the luxury and real estate markets in 2008 and 2009.
Breakdowns of waterfront houses and waterfront condos were similar. 453 waterfront houses were sold, a 36% increase over the 334 previous 2009 sales. Waterfront condos, usually a less-predictive measure of the waterfront real estate market, followed the same path with 182 sales in 2010, up 32% over the 138 waterfront condos sold the year before.
We're seeing the spread of waterfront and luxury home sales across the region, and I'd expect this to continue in 2011. There are certainly buyers in the market, and they're making purchases when properties are priced correctly. There's been an increase in attractively-priced inventory recently, as it seems that some of the "wait it out" sellers have come to realize that the new market is here to stay.
A significant percentage of value was lost in the past three years, and it's not coming back immediately. Realistic home owners are selling waterfront homes, and the market is benefitting from the larger number of sales with some price stabilization.
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