Despite stormy conditions, prospective home buyers visit Village at Mill Pond

A long-planned housing development in northeast Olympia known as the Village at Mill Pond is finally off the ground, and it welcomed hundreds of visitors over the weekend despite the windy and rainy conditions.

The reason so many turned out could be a reflection of the current housing market, which has been defined by a lack of inventory the past year — most notably in King County, where there’s about a month’s supply of single-family residences for sale.

South Sound inventory — an estimate of how long it would take for the entire inventory of active listings to sell at the current pace of sales — was just under three months in Thurston County and just over two months in Pierce County in February, according to Northwest Multiple Listing Service data.

A healthy market that doesn’t favor sellers or buyers is in the range of four to six months.

“We feel our timing is great,” said Paul McLain, a Realtor/broker with Re/Max Parkside Affiliates of Tumwater, about bringing homes to the market during a lack of supply. McLain also heads up a team of five real estate professionals on site for the Village at Mill Pond.

Designed as a “neighborhood village,” the Village at Mill Pond will bring 80 apartments, 98 townhomes and 122 single-family residences to a 45-acre site at 2400 Lilly Road NE. It also will have five parks, two ponds, a city bus stop, a private clubhouse for residents and 10,000 square feet of commercial space, which could bring a coffee shop and pizzeria to the site, McLain said.

Olympia also is home to Briggs Village, an urban residential site, but that was developed on a larger footprint, he said.

At the Village at Mill Pond, the Craftsman-style single-family residences have 11 floor plans now, with two more on the way, ranging in size from about 2,000 square feet to 3,800 square feet. Prices run $350,000 to just under $600,000. Three residences have already sold.

Forty-seven residences are expected to be built in the first phase, McLain added.

Marty and Linda Sechrist toured the model home properties on Sunday, looking for something that would provide more privacy than their current arrangement in Eatonville. Linda said they live below some homes where the neighbors can look into their backyard.

Linda described the Village at Mill Pond homes as beautiful, energy-efficient and spacious.

“What we’ve seen is nicely done, nicely developed,” she said

The property was developed by Mill Pond Limited Partnership and the homes are being constructed by longtime Olympia builder Greg Amendala, McLain said. The architect on the project is Ron Thomas, perhaps best known locally for his work with downtown Olympia developer Walker John.

For more information about the Village at Mill Pond, visit www.thevillageatmillpond.com. McLain said sales staff are on site noon to 6 p.m. daily.

This story was originally published March 13, 2016 at 4:35 PM with the headline "Despite stormy conditions, prospective home buyers visit Village at Mill Pond."