It wasn’t exactly a banner year, but Vashon’s real estate market picked up some in 2024.

The number of homes sold on the island increased last year, reversing a two-year decline. A total of 145 houses and condominiums changed hands, according to data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. That’s 16% more than 2023, and more than any year since 2021.

Sales volume remained well below that of the pandemic and pre-pandemic years. Still, there was a turnaround.

Why? High mortgage interest rates persisted; after dipping slightly mid-year, they returned to the neighborhood of 7%. Prices stayed high — the median price of homes sold on Vashon in 2024 hit an all-time high of $847,500 after slipping some the previous two years.

Some island realtors say home sales bounced back, despite those challenges, in part because some would-be buyers just got tired of waiting: They concluded that the good old days of relatively affordable homes and 3% interest rates aren’t coming back anytime soon.

“Buyers were waiting for interest rates to go down,” said Nicole Donnelly Martin, owner and designated managing broker at Vashon Island Sotheby’s International Realty. “It’s become apparent that it’s a long-term situation.”

“People aren’t going to wait another year,” said Sophia de Groen Stendahl, owner and broker at Windermere Vashon. “They need to get on with their lives.”

The Vashon real estate market’s rebound in 2024 mirrored that of the region in some respects. The median price of all homes sold in King County also bounced back, hitting an all-time high. Sales were up year-over-year in King, Kitsap and Pierce counties.

But, while new listings rose in 2024 in the rest of the region, the number of properties that went on the market on Vashon continued to decline. There were fewer new listings on Vashon last year than in any year since at least 2012.

Despite that drop in inventory — supply — and the increase in sales — demand — Vashon buyers had more leverage in 2024 than in previous years, realtors say.

Bidding wars were less frequent, Martin said. More than half of all homes sold in the fourth quarter went for below their list price, Stendahl added.

Buyers included recent retirees, realtors say, and people who can work mostly from home. Also families with children: Vashon’s schools remain a big draw.

The market for second homes remained strong, especially for waterfront cabins, said Leslie Ferriel, broker and owner at John L. Scott Vashon. Some buyers hope to market them as short-term rentals for much of the year, she said: Unlike some other jurisdictions, AirBNBs and VRBOs aren’t regulated in unincorporated King County, although the County Council recently decided to study possible restrictions.

Some Vashon home buyers may be “climate refugees.” Martin said she’s working with a family from Arizona who have decided they no longer can tolerate the heat there. She and Stendahl wonder if the recent wildfires will draw more Californians to the Pacific Northwest and Vashon.

Stendahl said she’s also starting to see would-be buyers motivated, in part, by politics. The day after the November election, she said, her office got a call from a woman in deep-red Tennessee with a non-binary child who said she had to get out of that state.

Who’s selling homes on Vashon, and why? As always, death and divorce still trigger many listings, realtors say.

Some folks who moved to Vashon during the pandemic because they could work from home, but now have been ordered to return to the office, are selling because they can’t stomach the commute, Martin said. Others who bought second homes on the island during COVID, but now aren’t using them much, are also putting their places on the market.

More older islanders also are deciding to sell, Ferriel said: “People are aging out of their properties.”

Seniors — and Vashon has a disproportionate number of them — are leaving the island for a variety of reasons, she said: They’re finding it more difficult to maintain their properties. They want to be closer to health care, or to their children. They can’t afford their property taxes.

Ferriel, Stendahl and Martin don’t expect dramatic changes in the Vashon real estate market in 2025. They do expect sales to continue to increase.

This chart shows the number of closed sales of houses and condos on Vashon from 2020 through 2024. Data source: Northwest Multiple Listing Service, courtesy of Windermere Vashon. (Beachcomber data visualization)

Even a small drop in interest rates — Fannie Mae and the Mortgage Bankers Association forecast something in the range of 6.5% by year’s end — could prompt more prospective buyers to start looking seriously, Ferriel said.

And increased competition for homes will push prices even higher: “I think buyers are going to be caught, unfortunately,” she said.

Martin and Stendahl agree. “There just seems to be a lot of pent-up buyer demand,” Martin said.

She expects prices will increase 5 to 7%. Online real-estate marketplace Zillow forecasts a 2% bump in Vashon home values.

Stendahl, who grew up on the island, knows others who were raised here, moved away, now want to move back, but can’t afford a house. “I’ve had to break all my friends’ hearts,” she said.

One sign of just how pricey Vashon has become: 52 of the 145 homes sold on the island last year — 36% — fetched more than $1 million. The priciest: A 10,000 square foot mansion with 820 feet of waterfront on 24 acres on Soper Road. It sold in July for $6.75 million.

The home went back on the market last Friday, for $250,000 less.

Eric Pryne is a retired Seattle Times journalist.