Port Townsend has spent years arguing about the paper mill as though only two positions are available: defend it without qualification or shut it down without regret. Neither position is serious enough for the community we actually live in. The mill has real problems. Its odors are not imaginary. Neither
Buyer-Broker Agreements Aren’t the Trap. Bad Process Is. A Washington real estate broker’s response to “Real Estate’s New Paper Trap” Let me begin where I agree with James Rodriguez’s Business Insider article: springing a long-term, exclusive buyer-broker agreement on someone at the front
– From Information to Advocacy If this series has done its job, it has moved the conversation a little farther away from vague frustration and a little closer to shared understanding. The research behind it makes a clear case: East Jefferson County’s housing challenges are not the result of a
Part 8: Regional Context — How We Compare East Jefferson County sits in a strange—and revealing—position within the Olympic Peninsula and Puget Sound region. By the numbers, it’s one of the most expensive housing markets around. In Q2 2025, the median home price here reached $642,500. That’
Part 7: Short-Term Rentals, Second Homes, and Scarcity If you feel like every cute house in your neighborhood has quietly turned into a vacation rental, you’re not imagining it. Over the past decade, Jefferson County has layered a tourism and second-home economy on top of an already
Part 6 – The Economics of Building Here If you stand in front of the “For Sale” board, or scroll the listings, and wonder, “Why don’t we just build more normal houses that regular people can afford?”, the honest answer is hard to hear: At today’s costs, and under
Part 5: Policy, Planning, Non‑Decisions – and Now, Opportunity Zones If you zoom out, western Jefferson County’s housing crunch is not mainly about fickle buyers or mortgage rates; it is about a long series of policy choices and, more often, policy non‑decisions that boxed the market into a
Part 4 – Affordability and Who Can Buy Eastern Jefferson County’s housing market no longer runs on what local work pays. Prices are now set by people bringing in outside equity and retirement income, and that shift is deciding who gets to move here, who can stay, and who quietly
Part 2 – The Map Inside the Market How Port Townsend, the Tri‑Area, and Hood Canal each get stuck in their own way If you only look at county‑wide numbers, Jefferson County just looks confused. Inventory is up sharply over the past year, but median prices are still hovering
Part 3 – How We Got Here From pre‑COVID tightening to the “Zoom town” era and the interest‑rate shock that followed: the story of the last decade in plain language. Before COVID hit, Western Jefferson County was already on a slow boil. Prices were rising faster than local paychecks,
Part 1 - Where We Are Now: High, Slow, and Stuck Right now, East Jefferson County’s housing market lives in a strange in‑between zone.
Part 0: Why This Series Exists For years, people have described East Jefferson County’s housing market as “tight,” “expensive,” or simply “impossible.” Those impressions are not wrong—but they are incomplete. Those who know me know that I am passionate about advocacy, I believe in community, I love real