Real estate focus of GGHI Business Forum

Grays Harbor County real estate was the topic of discussion at the final Greater Grays Harbor, Inc. (GGHI) Business Forum Lunch of 2025 at the Rotary Log Pavilion in Aberdeen.

After County Commissioner Georgia Miller and GGHI CEO Darrin Raines made some opening remarks, Chairman of the GGHI Board of Directors Kyle Pauley moderated a panel discussion featuring real estate and housing professionals Charlee Paull (US Bank), Eric Bjella (NeighborWorks of Grays Harbor), Larry Burgher (Empire Home Loans Inc.), Jill Warne (CENTURY 21 Real Estate Center) and David Quigg (Quigg & Co Real Estate).

“We’re tasked with evaluating the needs of the community and through policy, budgeting and partnerships addressing those needs. Housing continues to be one of the greatest needs and lack of it causes a multitude of problems,” Miller said. “The Board of County Commissioners has made housing one of our top priorities. We’re working on the framework to get an RFP (request for proposal) for a housing study to determine what types of housing and what areas are needed for the county. We’re working with the building and planning department to determine if we could further streamline the permitting process and potentially eliminate some of the hurdles that stop people from building in our county.”

Each panelist was afforded the opportunity to describe what they do and talk a bit about the current real estate climate in the region.

Paull described her career in banking and her current focus on mortgage lending, Bjella gave an overview of NeighborWorks’ programs and offerings, Burgher discussed the importance of local lending and home ownership and community involvement, Warne recapped her career in real estate and spoke highly of the potential in Grays Harbor County, and Quigg shared an anecdote about neighborly connections and cracked a couple of jokes.

“I think we’ve got a lot of equity and we’ve got a strong and resilient market. When you look at the increase in home values since 2018 we are up 69%, that’s through 2024,” Burgher said. “There’s a $40,000 median price slip. It’s important to remember every time we slip back, we find a way to step forward here in Grays Harbor. How long will it be on the affordability scale before it becomes unaffordable for some folks? That depends on how many employers we have here in Grays Harbor County that are going to pay the kind of wages that it takes for people to be able to afford a home.”

“From the perspective of NeighborWorks and our lending experience, the real estate landscape for us has been a little lower demand for our loans over the past year and a little bit of discouragement for folks on a level I work with that are first-time home buyers or they’re lower income people and it’s been a little bit discouraging with what’s been available in their price ranges,” Bjella said. “Higher home prices and a little bit higher interest rates, that’s worked against them. In addition to those things, they’re also looking at the cost of home ownership. Buying a home is one thing, keeping a home is another.”

“Surprisingly optimistic. Right now we are seeing very solid home prices, which is exciting for those homeowners that have been in the home ownership position for a while, they’re having a strong equity position,” Paull said. “Affordability across the board really is impacting our buyers. The current average first-time home buyer age is 38 years old, which made me feel really lucky because I was able to buy my house at 25, but I was blessed and set up well. I am seeing that more and more with my clients, that education piece of how to get to where they need to be as well as the hard numbers.”

“Remember COVID? It was bad for a lot of reasons, but it was literally our glory days in real estate in Grays Harbor. Ocean Shores had never seen that action since 1967. Look at Seabrook,” Quigg said. “Look at your neighborhood. The number of houses that are fixed up is much higher. In real estate right now it’s kind of a balanced market where the number of homes available versus the number of people looking is about balanced. Average days on market right now is 59 days, the volume is up. The volume of homes available is good if you’re looking to buy because the price is lower. Sales to list ratio, the price you listed the house at, and the price you sold it at is at 97.6 % for Washington state. … My wife this year has sold three homes at a million dollars-plus in Grays Harbor, not at Seabrook. All three buyers were local. That’s something that we haven’t seen in the past.”

“Most of my business, I see the buyers and where they’re from, most of the buyers are not local. Locally, people think our market is way too inflated, but people from the outside think our market is wonderful. They’re coming here because we have better prices,” Warne said. “I was just in California and I was amazed at all the new development and you can find new houses starting in the low ($300,000s). I was blown away by that. If we had more supply, that would make our houses more affordable for our local people. But we also need more jobs so that they can afford to buy houses. The first-time home buyer age of 38, that’s horrible.”

According to a handout provided to attendees, the median home sales price in Grays Harbor County has dipped in the past year from $380,000 to $341,900, and as of 2023, roughly 73.2% of housing units were owner occupied. There are approximately 55,400 homeowners who have an average of $55,900 of equity in their homes. The handout also stated that the median home price in the state of Washington was $626,100 in 2024, while the median home price in the rest of the country was $419,300 in 2024.

Topics covered during the remainder of the panel discussion included median home sale price trends, interest rates, affordability, the cost of home ownership, credit scores, down payment requirements, closing costs, monthly payments, flood insurance, available inventory, building vs. buying existing homes, buyer and new homeowner educational resources, debt-to-income ratio and development proximity to infrastructure such as water, sewer, power, etc.

The event concluded with a question and answer session.