Say you're selling a resale home in Port Orchard this fall. Your competition isn't just the house down the street. A few miles away at McCormick Trails, new homes are ready to move into, and one builder is advertising a first-year VA rate of 2.49% for buyers who sign by November 15. That builder can lower a buyer's monthly payment. You can only lower your price.
That competition helps explain a split the county numbers hide. In September 2026, Kitsap County had the tightest supply in the whole Northwest Multiple Listing Service area. But contract activity in South Kitsap fell by roughly half compared with a year earlier, while Silverdale and Poulsbo signed more contracts than they had a year before. If you're comparing parts of the peninsula this November, the county label describes one market and the newest contracts describe two.
What the 2.58 figure measures
NWMLS reported that Kitsap County had 2.58 months of inventory in September 2026, the lowest of any county it covers. Clallam County was next at 3.21. The figure comes from NWMLS's Kitsap map-area breakout: 904 active listings divided by 351 closed sales. That county total also includes Bainbridge Island.
Closed sales look backward. A home that closed in September usually went under contract weeks before, when borrowing cost less. Freddie Mac's 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.71% on September 3 and 7.03% on September 24, then reached 7.28% in the first week of October. By Freddie Mac's October 22 survey, it was 7.32%, down from 7.40% the week before. A year earlier it was 6.19%.
Pending sales show where buyers are now. Kitsap's pending sales fell 19.2% from September 2025, a steeper drop than the 15.1% decline across the full NWMLS area. Meanwhile, Kitsap's closed sales rose 2.33%. With closings up and new contracts down, the 2.58 figure describes demand from earlier in the year.
Pending sales split the peninsula
Look area by area and the 19% county drop is really two separate stories. The table below uses NWMLS figures for September 2026. The last column is our own math: active listings divided by September pending sales. That shows how deep the supply looks against current buyer activity instead of against summer closings.
| NWMLS area, Sept. 2026 | Active listings | Months of inventory, NWMLS | Pending sales vs. Sept. 2025 | Active listings per pending sale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 141 South Kitsap-West Hwy 16 | 150 | 2.94 | 24, down 57.9% | 6.3 |
| 144 Retsil/Manchester | 40 | 3.64 | 9, down 57.1% | 4.4 |
| 143 Port Orchard | 60 | 2.31 | 16, down 48.4% | 3.8 |
| 142 South Kitsap-East Hwy 16 | 52 | 3.25 | 16, down 38.5% | 3.3 |
| 148 West Bremerton | 87 | 2.12 | 32, down 22.0% | 2.7 |
| 150 East Central Kitsap | 52 | 1.79 | 20, down 23.1% | 2.6 |
| 147 Silverdale | 65 | 1.86 | 34, up 54.5% | 1.9 |
| 166 Poulsbo | 50 | 2.94 | 34, up 61.9% | 1.5 |
| All Kitsap County | 904 | 2.58 | 307, down 19.2% | 2.9 |
South Kitsap-West Hwy 16 shows the gap most clearly. Measured by closings, it had under three months of supply. Measured by current contracts, it had more than six. Active listings there rose from 118 to 150 over the year, while pending sales fell from 57 to 24. The area's closed-sale numbers still looked good. Average time on market for September closings dropped to 48 days from 73 a year earlier.
Silverdale is going the other way. It had 35 closings, up from 20, and its average time on market fell to 24 days from 47. With 34 pending sales against 65 active listings, its supply looks about the same measured either way. Poulsbo looks even tighter by contracts than by closings. Its 34 pending sales were double its 17 closings.
Who South Kitsap sellers are up against
The South Kitsap-West Hwy 16 median sale price in September 2026 was $629,990, nearly identical to a year earlier. That's the same number Century Communities lists as its starting price for new homes in Port Orchard, where it says move-in-ready homes are available.
Century is one of three builders selling at McCormick Trails, inside the McCormick master-planned community. In late October, the builders' own pages showed:
- Tri Pointe Homes: three move-in-ready homes at $689,900 to $729,900. Its "Value of Now" sales event advertises a VA 30-year fixed 3-2-1 buydown with a first-year rate as low as 2.49%, or 5.921% APR, on eligible homesites. The example uses a $755,900 home. Under the published terms, buyers must sign a purchase agreement between October 1 and November 15, 2026, and close by December 31.
- KB Home: four move-in-ready homes and three floor plans. Through KBHS Home Loans, it advertises a 4.625% 5/1 FHA adjustable-rate loan on select move-in-ready homes.
- Century Communities: homes from $629,990, with move-in-ready inventory.
A builder can spend money to bring down the rate, so a buyer gets a lower monthly payment without the builder cutting the list price. Most resale sellers in Port Orchard have one tool, a price cut, so their homes stay on the market while buyers do the math. When the 30-year average is above 7%, a first-year rate in the 2s changes how a buyer compares two houses, and newer homes are easy to compare against nearby resales. These offers are rate-specific, change often, and depend on loan type and eligibility. This is general information, not financial advice. Anyone considering one of these programs should review the terms with their own lender.
More for-sale supply is coming to the Bethel corridor. Housing Kitsap's Ives Mills project on the 5400 block of SE Bethel Road calls for 49 detached single-family homes. As of a Kitsap Daily News report in February, it was still waiting on a preliminary-plat decision. A 145-unit apartment complex was also under construction on Mile Hill Drive in August, the Kitsap Sun reported.
Silverdale's and Poulsbo's new housing doesn't compete for buyers
Central Kitsap has plenty of new housing, but most of it is for renters. The Kitsap Daily News reported in late September that Highlands at Silverdale is finished at 570 units, which were leased phase by phase as they opened. Royal Valley, along Highway 303 between Silverdale and Brownsville, could hold more than 600 units after a Kitsap County Hearing Examiner approved an appeal allowing greater density, according to the Kitsap Sun. No mix of homes for sale was given. A resale seller in Silverdale isn't competing against a builder's rate buydown, and the numbers fit that. Silverdale had 1.86 months of inventory, among the lowest in the county.
Poulsbo's new for-sale housing is either very small or still in review. Garrette Homes' Tall Timber community offers only eight five-acre homesites, with to-be-built homes priced from $1,342,900 to $1,613,900. That's a different price range from the Poulsbo median. The City of Poulsbo's page for Pinnacle at Liberty Bay lists 138 single-family lots on about 42 acres. The application was resubmitted September 17, a revised traffic analysis was filed October 5, and the hearing date is still listed as TBD.
Why prices lag behind contracts
If contracts in South Kitsap fell by half, why hasn't the median dropped? The Washington Center for Real Estate Research explained the pattern in the NWMLS October release:
"Prices tend to rise quickly in a strong market but can be slower to fall when conditions weaken, in part because sellers may have the flexibility to wait rather than accept a lower price." — Steven Bourassa, director, Washington Center for Real Estate Research
Region-wide, that slowdown is already easy to see. Active listings across the NWMLS area hit 24,965 in September 2026, the most since September 2014. Months of inventory reached 4.44, and for every 100 new listings, buyers signed contracts on about 62 homes, down from about 80 a year earlier. South Kitsap's pending numbers suggest it is moving toward that regional picture faster than the county's closed-sale figures show.
Medians in the peninsula's smallest areas can mislead you in either direction. In September 2026, Port Gamble, Suquamish and Indianola each had one closed sale, so Indianola's 34.48% median drop is really the price of a single house. Kingston's median rose 21.08% on 10 closings, yet active listings there nearly doubled, from 27 to 51, putting supply at 5.10 months. In both places, the listing count tells you more than the price.
Quick questions
Is Kitsap still a seller's market? By September 2026 closings, the county is the tightest in the NWMLS area. By pending sales, it depends on the area. Silverdale and Poulsbo stayed tight. South Kitsap-West Hwy 16 had about six active listings for every pending sale.
When does the next data come out? NWMLS posted September's snapshot on October 6. When the October report comes out, the pending column for areas 141, 143, 147 and 166 will show whether the split continued after rates moved above 7%.
Do builder buydowns affect resale prices nearby? The data shows they overlap in time and place. The South Kitsap-West Hwy 16 median matched a builder's starting price in September 2026, and contracts in that area fell by more than half while builders were advertising buydowns. Neither figure proves cause, but they help explain why these South Kitsap sellers had fewer buyers to work with than Silverdale sellers did.
If you're weighing a Port Orchard resale against a McCormick Trails new build, or deciding how to price a South Kitsap listing against builders who can buy down a buyer's rate, Connie Sorensen can walk through the area-by-area pending numbers with you. Start Your Island Journey with a personal consultation, and we'll compare the homes you're considering contract by contract.
