It’s been almost a year since Maria Charskaya purchased her Seattle townhouse and she’s still a happy customer.

“Very quickly we realized we weren’t fix-it people, so we moved to the conclusion ‘we need something new, we need it to be reasonably well located next to town ‘, because we both work,” Charskaya said. .

The townhouse was a match that met all of his and his family’s expectations, all within their budget.

“The location is amazing. We’re 15 minutes from downtown, 15 minutes from everything in the neighborhood, it’s great and the house itself is what we were looking for,” a- she declared.

“I would say in the last 10 years we’ve seen a ton of townhouse development,” said Charskaya real estate agent Sharon O’Mahony.

O’Mahony, of O’Mahony Homes, who has been in the Seattle real estate business for 20 years, says many clients have found their ideal home in today’s imperfect townhouse market – a trend that can be spotted in many markets across the country

According to the National Association of Home BuildersTownhouse construction accounted for nearly 15% of single-family housing starts in the second quarter of this year. That represents a 17.2% year-over-year increase for a second consecutive quarter – and a record high since the data began being published in the mid-1980s.

“We have a huge problem with middle housing. So this is something that’s going to help us solve part of that problem,” O’Mahony said.

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Charlie Lankston, editor-in-chief of Real estate agent.com, says there are a few clear reasons why demand is high for townhomes.

One is price. Lankston says there are 36 ZIP codes where townhomes are on average 30 percent less expensive than typical single-family homes, like in Raleigh, North Carolina, for example.

“The median price for a townhome in Raleigh is $463,000. However, the median price for another type of stand-alone single-family home is more than $2.49 million,” Lankston said.

Another reason, Lankston said, is potentially lower insurance rates and the fact that townhouses are being built in places where they typically weren’t in the past.

“Developers are building more townhouses in rural areas because land prices have gone up. It’s not as easy to grab a big lot, stick a house in the middle and hope to make a lot of money from this,” she said. .

Another benefit, at least for Maria Charskaya, was an instant sense of community. There are several townhouses on the same lot and she knows her neighbors well.

“When we moved in, we had neighbors visiting us with cookies,” she laughed, “It’s like the whole neighborhood was a close-knit community.”

So, will this trend continue? Lankston believes it.

“These are people who really want to move into a house, settle in. And stay there for at least a few years. So I definitely think we’re going to see townhouses as kind of a predominant theme for a few years.” to come,” she said

When it comes to advice for townhouse buyers, Sharon O’Mahony says to be aware of homeowners’ association fees. Some, but not all, townhomes are part of an HOA and may have additional monthly fees.

Also consider location: Whether or not the townhouse trend continues, O’Mahony says a property in a prime location will retain its value better than one that isn’t.

“Stick to location, location, location, location, because when the market turns, if it ever turns, the hardest thing to do is sell a property in a less desirable place,” she said. “So I would say focus on an area that is really desirable, not only for them but for other buyers, because I think you can’t lose if you do that.”

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