Kitsap's The Key -- Want A Water View, A Half-Hour Commute And A Price Under $150,000?

Phil Broms sells houses on the Kitsap Peninsula, and he has a gee-whiz of a story. Seems not long ago Broms sold a brand new, 2,100-square-foot home in Poulsbo for $180,000. Set on almost half an acre, the house has three bedrooms up, living room, dining room, den down. Nice family room off the kitchen. Hardwood floor entry. Breakfast nook.

Also seems the builder, one of Washington's largest, was building that exact same home - but on a smaller lot - near Bothell. The price there: $256,000.

Broms, a John L. Scott agent, laughs as he provides the kicker: Both homes are a one-hour commute to downtown Seattle.

And therein lies the tale of two counties - Kitsap and King - and the economics that are causing an increasing number of Seattleites to house hunt west of Puget Sound.

Now, with Gov. Gary Locke's approval Friday of a $113 million plan to build four high-speed, passenger-only ferries linking Southworth and Kingston to downtown Seattle in just half an hour, Kitsap real estate experts are predicting the land rush will really be on.

How fast depends on funding for the craft, which has yet to be decided. Preliminary estimates are that the boats could be in service by late 2000.

In the meantime, word of the Chinook, a passenger-only boat coming on line this summer, has spurred interest in Bremerton. The Chinook will cut the Bremerton-Seattle run to just 30 minutes, at a cost of $3.60 per person (less for frequent passengers).

Jacqui Curtiss, manager of John L. Scott's Port Orchard office, thinks some King County home hunters are already getting the message, at least about Kitsap's lower prices, and it's beginning to affect the market.

"The market time (it takes to sell a house) is closing up," says Curtiss. "A large part of it is because the demand from our surrounding area is increasing. We're getting a lot more Seattle buyers, including Bellevue."

Indeed Curtiss estimates that 20 percent of her buyers are from King County, "and I think that's growing."

Although Kitsap County home prices are rising, they're not going up as fast as in King County. And they're lower to begin with. Last year the median price of Kitsap County properties was $57,000 less than in King County - and the spread was even greater if Bainbridge Island, as costly as Seattle, was omitted.

Because the supply of houses far outstrips demand, Kitsap's market has the reputation as being near moribund, although Windermere's Bremerton branch manager, Jessica Kennedy, says it's not quite as dead as some people say.

"We are starting to see multiple offers on homes under $100,000 in Bremerton," Kennedy reports.

Under $100,000 for properties that soon will be a half-hour commute from Seattle? Yes, it's true.

And in that price range there's lots to choose from: on a recent day, some 230 homes and condominiums, to be exact. That's almost a quarter of all residential properties for sale in Bremerton. And Bremerton by no means has the corner on for-sale signs.

Port Orchard, with a population of only 7,000, has 900 properties for sale. It would be as if Seattle, with its 530,000 population, had 70,000 - yes, 70,000 - homes and condos for sale. Instead Seattle has 1,800.

Kitsap is such a buyer's market that John L. Scott agent Randi Strong-Petersen says the norm for most of the county except Bainbridge is for the seller to pay the buyer's closing costs. "So you can almost get in for no money."

While Kitsap County is an hour or less from Seattle, it has the perception of being far more remote, and as a result, it's unknown - and dismissed by many King County home buyers.

"People (in Seattle) think north and south and east to the Cascade Mountains," says Gary Gartin, a Bremerton commercial real estate specialist. "But people don't think of going west on the state highways that are boats. The state ferries are highways on water."

While Seattleites may not be used to thinking that way, Kitsap residents are old hands at it. "One of the myths is we're isolated," Gartin says. "But all you have to do is get on the ferry and you're in Seattle. I love ballet . . . have season tickets . . . and my kids love the zoo."

So Gartin lives in Kitsap, with its less crowded or costly lifestyle, and still soaks up what Seattle has to offer.

Kitsap's is "an ideal isolation," he's decided.

Should Seattleites venture west, they'll find in Kitsap the second-densest county in the state (behind King), although it doesn't appear so because much of it is forested and rural.

They'll find view homes and waterfront plentiful because Kitsap County, a tidy 392 square miles in size, has 236 miles of fjord-like saltwater shoreline.

They'll find small, quaint towns: Poulsbo and Port Orchard.

Thanks to an ambitious redevelopment plan, they'll find a lot of optimism in downtown Bremerton. The plan is called Sinclair Landing, and it will revitalize eight blocks on the city's waterfront with a new ferry terminal, an expanded public marina, plus condominiums, a waterfront inn and retail.

They'll find new schools and strong community in places like Silverdale. "There's not a sports event my kids could attend here where they couldn't get a ride home with somebody I know personally," says Strong-Petersen, who lives in Silverdale.

Home seekers will find nine golf courses, seven of them public, and they'll find shiny new housing developments.

Golf and houses converge at McCormick Woods. In south Kitsap, it's 12 miles from the Southworth and Bremerton ferry terminals.

Nineteen-hundred-acre McCormick Woods is one of the county's premier new housing developments. Set around an 18-hole golf course that Golf Digest magazine has ranked among the nation's top 50, it features a variety of housing types. While the homes are all new, there's no cookie-cutter ambiance here, no tiny lots .

Ramblers spread on 10,000 square-foot lots; two-story Craftsman homes boast river-rock trim and real front porches. Next door might be a colonial complete with columns.

As McCormick Woods' general manager Scott Candland drives around, pointing out the jogging trails, green belts and tot play lots, he confesses some frustration. Everybody thinks the Greater Seattle area is just one big boom market, he says. But that's certainly not true of rural Kitsap.

"We have a hard time telling (people living in) that hot market we're here," Candland says. "We keep thinking they'll surge down through Tacoma and then up here."

Luring in the buyers

To give King County buyers some incentive, McCormick Woods has held everything from art shows to food fests to "BMW days."

"We get them (potential buyers) in trickles," and so house sales are slow. But then they're slow throughout the Port Orchard area, where the average home price is $126,000, and all that standing inventory is part of the problem. "We have difficulty selling houses for over $250,000," Candland says, whereas in Seattle, "buyers have difficulty finding new homes under $250,000."

He drives by a new, 2,000 square-foot Craftsman-style that's been discounted from two and a quarter to $199,000. Lana Thompson, an Issaquah resident, is looking it over. Would be $300,000 on the Eastside, she reckons.

"Houses are much more fairly and reasonably priced at McCormick Woods," Thompson says, "and it's beautiful over here."

Still, after looking for a year and a half, she hasn't made up her mind to move. On the plus side is the golf course; on the minus side the distance from Seattle. "The thing that keeps putting me off is the traffic. It's pretty horrendous, particularly (State Route) 16 over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge."

That aging, slender bridge has become one of the state's worst bottlenecks, with the average weekday traffic topping 82,000 vehicles - up from less than 60,000 a decade ago.

Certainly McCormick Woods is only one segment of the county, and real estate agents are eager to sing the praises - and particularly the affordability - of other areas, many 20 minutes or less from a ferry terminal.

"Bremerton has several pockets of bungalows," notes Windermere's Kennedy, mentioning the Manette area. "Older homes there are right around $100,000, and some of them feel like Ravenna.

"Up on the hill behind Manette are larger homes built about 15 years ago. They have views; they're real spacious. You can get a beautiful home up there for $120,000 to $160,000."

She goes on: water-view homes near Kingston for $130,000; brand new homes in Silverdale for $175,000 and up; older Poulsbo homes for $120,000.

Says John L. Scott's Strong-Petersen: "A couple just getting married can afford to buy a home here they could never afford over there (Greater Seattle). And they can probably afford to have one person work in Seattle and the other stay at home, if they choose to do that."

If Kitsap is such a swell place, why is property so inexpensive - at least compared with Seattle - and, by the way, how are residents going to feel if hordes from King County arrive bearing cash and driving up housing prices?

"I think the retirement community is concerned about being priced out," confides Strong-Petersen. But she says it's a double-edged sword. "That guy who doesn't want to be disturbed is paying really high property taxes because there's no one else to help pay the cost." More people, she says, will spread the obligation.

Kitsap job slump

The reason housing costs haven't climbed like Greater Seattle's is because Kitsap's economy has been playing out the reverse of King's.

In a nutshell, King County's prices have risen because more than 100,000 new jobs have been created recently, fueling a huge demand for housing.

Kitsap, long dependent on government - and especially military - employment, lost 1,300 government jobs between September 1996 and `97, continuing a downward trend that began in 1994. With not enough other jobs being created, Kitsap has seen no job growth.

According to Kennedy and others, there may not be any significant job growth until the county's Comprehensive Plan, long a contentious issue, is finalized, giving potential employers some certainty of how the county will develop.

As a result, county residential building permits hit at least a 15-year low in 1997, which means there are few new homes being built, and new homes are what pull an entire housing market's prices up.

Another byproduct of no job growth is an apartment glut. Kitsap's vacancy rate is almost 9 percent (King County's is just over 2 percent), and a newer two-bedroom Bremerton apartment with a fireplace can be rented for $500. With apartments so plentiful and reasonable, there was little incentive for some renters to buy.

Thus county realtors and others are looking for ways to increase the population of home buyers without necessarily having to increase the number of jobs. They have big hopes that one way will be by luring King County workers via high-speed passenger ferry service (the ferries will take bicycles, by the way).

"For a long time the county was very content because the Navy was supporting it," says Gartin, the commercial real estate specialist. "Now that's not so true, and we're ready to be discovered."

On the Web: To go online and see all Kitsap properties listed through the Northwest Multiple Listing Service call up: http://www.nwrealestate.com

Kitsap listings can also be viewed in the Web sites of most large real estate firms. ------------------------------- BREMERTON Price: $81,950 . -- 3 bedrooms . -- 1 bathroom . -- 1 fireplace . -- 1-car garage . -- approximate square footage: 2,535 . -- partly fenced yard with RV parking, alley access, and fruit trees .

PORT ORCHARD Price: $196,500 . -- 3 bedrooms . -- 3 bathrooms . -- family room . -- 1 fireplace . -- approximate square footage: 1,859 . -- located in golf-course community of McCormick Woods . -- built-in vacuum, security system . -- professional landscaping, sprinkler system .

BREMERTON Price: $84,000 . -- 2 bedrooms . -- 2 bathrooms . -- approximate square footage: 1,200 . -- waterfront condo with view of Puget Sound . -- security gate . -- cable TV . -- balcony/deck . ------------------------------- A snapshot of Kitsap County home sales in 1997

Market Average Annual Days on . area price price change market . ---------------------------------------------------- South Kitsap $131,875 +0.78% 146 . Silverdale $155,853 +6.09% 138 . West Bremerton $100,494 +12.91% 115 . East Bremerton $108,274 +2.83% 119 . Central Kitsap $126,502 +6.10% 127 . North Kitsap $161,365 +3.23% 149 . Bainbridge

Island $300,480 +3.0% 142 . --------------------------------------------------- County Average $161,212 +6.9% 139 . Less Bainbridge $138,171 +5.14% - .

SOURCE: Richards & Associates Real Estate Appraiserf for Kitsap County Real Estate Trends. ------------------------------- THE SEATTLE TIMES