Century Communities Pays Record Kitsap Price for 343-Lot Sinclair Ridge Development Site

National homebuilding company Century Communities Inc. (NYSE: CCS) is the new owner of Sinclair Ridge, a 343-lot housing development in Kitsap County.

The $24.7 million price works out to $72,076 per lot, a record for Kitsap County, according to the brokers at Land Advisors Organization Washington, which listed the property for seller Northview Ridge Properties LLC of Bremerton.

The sale also is another example of big builders buying bigger properties to gain better control of their pipelines.

As housing prices climbed in the central Puget Sound region, builders and buyers have been turning to Kitsap. At $500,000, the county’s median single-family home sale price last month was, 39% less than King County’s but up 12.4% year over year. The submarket’s desirability has increased with the advent four years ago of Kitsap Transit’s fast-ferry network.

Century Communities plans to start building the first of Sinclair Ridge’s four phases in late spring and open for sales in the summer of 2023. Home sizes are anticipated to range from 1,726 to 3,000-plus square feet. There will be a mix of ramblers and two-story homes with prices planned to start in the low to mid-$500,000s.

The price of lots in entitled plats in Kitsap County has almost doubled in the last 18 months, said Scott Cameron of Land Advisors Organization. With remote work becoming common, the boundaries have been stretched and publicly traded homebuilders are look as far west as Sequim, according to Cameron.

Housing markets across the region and beyond are struggling with low inventories. Kitsap has less than a month’s supply of single-family homes available for purchase, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Builders in general but especially large publicly traded builders are buying bigger “paper lots,” which are properties with approved entitlements.

In August, Pulte Homes of Washington Inc. bought a 410-lot property in Kingston for $23 million, or nearly $56,100 per lot.

The builders buying larger properties want to control their pipelines of inventory because it’s so difficult to get plats entitled in Western Washington, said Cameron, who listed Sinclair Ridge with colleague Wes Falkenborg.

Sinclair Ridge is adjacent to the McCormick Woods master-planned community and about a 20-minute car trip to the Southworth and Bremerton fast-ferry terminals.

Cameron said Northview Ridge Properties LLC acquired the property several years after the Great Recession. It was a lender-owned property at the time. The acquisition price was not available.