The Poulsbo area on the Kitsap Peninsula comprises the communities of Poulsbo, Lemolo, Lincoln Hill, and Poulsbo Place. Poulsbo is the home of West Sound Academy, one of the SEVP private schools certified to admit foreign students at both the middle and upper school levels.87 The population of Poulsbo—originally a Native American settlement, later a Scandinavian enclave—is estimated to have grown from 9,200 in 2010 to 9,950 in 2015.88 SFRs comprise 67.7 percent of the local housing stock. After dipping briefly into seller’s market territory in mid-2014, the monthly supply tightened three more times, then remained there from June 2015 through the end of the year. The average supply of homes for sale was 2.4 months in 2015, down from 4.0 in 2014 and 5.1 in 2013.
Demonstrating the degree to which prices in this market can shift, Poulsbo’s median sale price more than reversed 2014’s year-over-year decline, returning a 19.5 percent gain in 2015—the secondhighest percentage gain we saw after Belltown/Downtown Seattle. Although slightly more volatile than prices in Kitsap County generally, sale prices and their deviation from list prices trended with others countywide, which have together irregularly risen toward 100 percent over the past two years.
