The South Sound’s Luxury Real Estate Market
The South Sound’s Luxury Real Estate Market Was Hot in 2021. How Might 2022 Fare? By Blake Perterson
The end of 2021 saw the sale of a Pierce County property many a real estate agent would consider a career highlight. The $6.25 million home, roosted on the shores of Lake Tapps’ Snag Island community, created a unique experience for the mother-son agent team, John L. Scott’s Kimber Lee and Bryce Lee, supervising its sale.
As the pair recalled in a January interview with South Sound Business, the 5-bedroom, 6.25-bathroom, 10,000-square-foot-plus property was categorically special: Passed down generationally, encircled by an enviable amount of water, and so meticulously renovated over time that one would need to pore over literal boxes of notes — you could find out how many gallons of water a given toilet held if you looked hard enough — to fully comprehend all the property had to offer.
It was the kind of place the Lees prefer to call a legacy estate; it was the kind of place where requiring proof of funds and talking with a prospective buyer’s financial advisors and wealth managers was a necessity before a tour (which, in this case, felt almost more like a museum tour than a home tour) was even a consideration. Interest was so high, in fact, that some people flew in from Idaho and California just to check out the property. When an offer eventually was made, it was negotiated right there. (“We’re not leaving until we have this property — what’s it gonna take?” Kimber, who has been in real estate for 23 years, remembers the buyer saying.)
“And when we left,” Kimber added, “we knew that was going to be the last showing. And we were kind of bummed … we had a lot of fun with it.” Selling a house like this sprawling one — among 2021’s priciest local sales — is a once-in-a-career kind of thing. But selling a house that is more broadly considered part of the luxury real estate market is becoming increasingly common in Pierce County, where housing inventory has been more scarce of late.
The prices of more conventional homes in Pierce County are generally up themselves, adding insult to the shortage: Excluding condos, a single-family home had a median sale price of $520,000 in December, up 18.5 percent from that same time the previous year.
When homing in on Pierce County’s Lake Tapps area specifically, for example, Bryce noted that in January 2020, he’d typically see luxury homes spend around 83 days on the market — a number that, as of December 2021, had shrunken to an average of 21. Why the shift?
“The biggest thing, obviously, is work from home,” Bryce explained. “We’re having a lot of people who are now moving from an office space, and they’re needing to have a home office — (and) they need to have rooms that they can entertain their family. We’re seeing a lot of trends focusing back into the spaces — kitchen spaces that are being remodeled; we’re seeing theaters that are being utilized; you’re seeing wine cellars and entertainment spaces that are now being utilized.”
With the initial onset of COVID-19, and now with virus variants becoming omnipresent, Bryce added that buyers who can afford luxury properties are more and more compelled to settle into larger, multifaceted spaces that can more than adequately provide for their interests if any more COVID-related delays or shutdowns occur in the future. He said he’s also been seeing many families combining households (often multigenerational).
What should we expect to see as the year continues to unfold? When looking at home sales holistically, RE/MAX Northwest Realtors managing broker Dick Beeson said in a news release that he anticipates the real estate landscape in 2022 to be similar to what it was in 2021.
“The buying and selling process will not become any easier,” he said. “Once again, we start the real estate dance where buyers are chasing sellers. Sellers are chasing their replacement home, and brokers are chasing those elusive listings.” When narrowing in on luxury real estate, Kimber expressed optimism.
“I’m already forecasting 2022 to be even better than 2021,” she said. “We are already off to an amazing start with other luxury properties that we’re already working on … we’ve had a lot of people reach out to us with luxury properties — especially since they’ve seen what the luxury market has done in 2021. I forecast it continuing to grow.”
Photo by Candi Kintzley with Clarity NW Photography
