Silverdale neighborhood expands with million-dollar homes, most buyers are retired, local
A wave of new homes are being built on a hillcrest in Silverdale in the Skyfall neighborhood, just south of the El Dorado neighborhood and other Newberry Hill residential developments. At a glance the third phase of the project, called Solitude at Skyfall and made up of 29 single-family homes on lot sizes between one and three acres, offers a microcosm of a hot housing market that's steadily rising in recent years -- every one of the houses in the neighborhood will list for more than $1 million.
Traditionally in Kitsap such a high-end build may have been accommodating wealthy out-of-state transplants or families using the equity of a Seattle home to buy into the relatively cheaper market across the water. But high interest rates and appreciating home values here have increased demand for all housing, and Garrette Custom Homes, which is behind the project that will eventually feature 140 homes, reported that a majority of the interested buyers for the homes coming on line this spring are already here.
“Most of (the buyers) are actually local,” said Matt Lewis, president of the Garrette Homes Puget Sound division, citing interest in Skyfall from retirees, empty nesters and some families coming from places like Bainbridge Island, Poulsbo and Port Orchard who are downsizing. He did also acknowledge they've shown homes to people from Seattle or California as well.
“We've been building in Kitsap for five, six years now and that's one of the things that has struck me is there is a fair amount of affluence within Kitsap,” Lewis said. “I think initially it might have been (that) ‘those are high-priced homes, you better get the Californians to come up,’ and we do get a few, but there's some sneaky wealth around Kitsap.”
A quick search of current real estate listings online puts the pricing of 29 new million-dollar homes into some context, where the $1 million price point still isn't commonplace. Currently the Bremerton-Silverdale area shows only four other single-family homes priced at or above $1 million, outside of Skyfall listings, according to Windermere Real Estate's property search, all on the waterfront or with a nearby water view. The Poulsbo area has about 10, and a search with Port Orchard boundaries shows just two. On Bainbridge Island, where individual homes priced above the million-dollar mark have been more common in recent years, several dozen now exceed that price point, including one waterfront property listed at $9 million.
The new homes will be “highly personalized,” Lewis said, ranging from 2,000 to 4,300 square feet. Buyers will be able to design their home from a selection of floor plans and make stylistic adjustments on lighting, fixtures, tiling and more. The new round of home builds will be able to support multigenerational household designs for aging parents or adult children.
"The market's hot and it's going to even get worse," Kitsap Building Association executive officer Randall King said. Comprehensive plans for Kitsap County and across its cities are gearing toward multifamily residences, which will drive those projects to accommodate population growth rather than add single-family builds.
New home builds are in high demand, as Kitsap County buyers find themselves in a landscape of low inventory, said King. High interest rates, around 7%, have plagued the housing market and led homeowners to lock in place with their current low rates, effectively freezing movement in the market.
High demand equals high prices, but shipping and supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic made building supply costs skyrocket to more than triple the price at one point, King said. As a result, house prices have been driven upwards across the board, no matter if a home was once $400,000 or $1 million.
“People, they have that hard time figuring out why housing is so expensive because they're sitting on a home that they bought really inexpensive with a very low mortgage rate,” King said. “It's just the cost of things these days. You can't build that $200,000 home they had six years ago anymore.”
Related: Kitsap County home prices fell 0.2% in December, with houses listed at a median of $599,000
Skyfall’s first phase of houses began in 2019 and the second in 2022 with homes that cost about $600,000 to $700,000 with similar square footage, Lewis said, but there are a number of reasons the phase three homes cost significantly more.
Since opening Solitude at Skyfall’s model home in February, Garrette homes has made three sales, Lewis said. And though the homes are at a higher price point while interest rates are still high, he expects to see about two sales a month as per the previous phases’.
Lewis expects the Solitude at Skyfall homes to sell within the year and see construction finished by the end of 2025. Then, it’ll be time for the developers’ fourth and final phase that could wrap up construction in 2027 on another batch of homes similar to phase three’s.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: High end housing expands in Silverdale
