Ask most people shopping for a home on Fidalgo Island where the big price jump happens, and they'll point at the water. Cross the line from "in town" to "on the water" and the number should double, maybe triple. That's the assumption most buyers carry in from Seattle, from Bellevue, from wherever they're relocating from.
The numbers don't back it up. As of July 2026, the median single-family home in Anacortes sold for $706,900. The median listing price across the city's active waterfront homes, 39 of them at last count, sat at $780,000 as of July 1. That's roughly a 10 percent gap between "on the water" and "everywhere else," not the multiple most buyers expect when they start looking.
Something else is setting the real price line in Anacortes, and it has almost nothing to do with whether your living room windows face the Guemes Channel.
The split that actually matters: who owns the dock
The number that predicts price here isn't "waterfront or not." It's whether the water access comes bundled through a homeowners association or is deeded, private, and yours alone.
Take Skyline, the coastal neighborhood built around Burrows Bay near the ferry terminal. The Skyline Property Owners Association has managed shared amenities there since 1963, including Tugboat Beach, the Bayside Marina with its fuel dock and haul-out services, tennis and pickleball courts, a clubhouse, and RV spaces. Buy into Skyline and you're typically buying into that system rather than a private strip of shoreline. Condos there have recently listed with a median around $545,000. View homes cluster well under $700,000. The water is real. The access is shared and governed by an association, and it's priced accordingly.
Drive a few minutes the other direction to Rockridge and neighboring Cranberry Heights, and a different kind of listing shows up. One recent parcel on Oakes Avenue offers 683 feet of high-bank frontage, described by the listing agent as the last large undeveloped stretch of its kind, held privately for decades. Custom homes in The Summit at Rock Ridge, built by local firm Strandberg Construction, sell as one-of-one properties with no shared dock, no association beach, no clubhouse dues. Over in the gated Fidalgo Villas community, recent listings on Flounder Bay Lane and Skyline Way priced at $1,990,000 and $2,199,000, each built around a private courtyard, one with its own guest cottage.
Same island, same saltwater. A price gap measured in millions, not in the presence or absence of a view.
| Neighborhood | Water access model | What recent listings show | Best fit for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skyline | Shared marina and HOA, established 1963 | Condos near $545K; view homes largely under $700K | Buyers who want boating and beach access without owning the shoreline outright |
| Old Town | Public marina and parks nearby, no private moorage | View-home median $769K as of July 2026 | Buyers who value walkability over private access |
| Rockridge / Cranberry Heights / Fidalgo Villas | Private, deeded high-bank or estate lots | Custom builds and villas listing from roughly $2M | Buyers who want no shared systems and are paying for exclusivity |
Old Town proves the same point with no water access at all
If shared-versus-private access were the whole story, Old Town would land somewhere in the middle, since most of its homes don't come with a dock of any kind. Instead it commands a premium of its own, driven by something else entirely: distance to downtown on foot.
As of July 7, 2026, homes with a view in Old Town listed at a median of $769,000, close to the citywide waterfront figure despite most of these properties having no private shoreline at all. What they have instead is proximity. Kiwanis Waterfront Park sits a block from some of these listings. Anchor Cove Marina is close enough to walk to for a slip inspection. Commercial Avenue's shops and restaurants, the historic theatre, and Causland Memorial Park all sit within the same short radius.
Old Town buyers aren't paying for a dock. They're paying to leave the car parked.
The Port is about to test whether this holds
The Port of Anacortes approved a 2026 budget projecting more than $21 million in revenue, with $13.03 million earmarked for capital projects funded partly through state and federal grants. A meaningful share of that spending is aimed at exactly the kind of walkable, downtown-adjacent development that already commands Old Town's premium.
The clearest test is happening at Cap Sante Marina's West Basin. The Port is currently seeking a hotel developer for a 1.18-acre site at Ninth Street between Q and R avenues, described in the request for proposals as sitting at the main entry to a marina with roughly 1,000 slips, walking distance from downtown. Two more sites for restaurants and a mixed-use office and retail building are planned for a later phase. Next door, the city and Port are jointly funding a 400-seat event facility expected to break ground in fall 2026 and take about 14 months to build, financed through lodging tax bonds and grants rather than property or sales tax. On the marina's A-Dock, shore power and clean-energy upgrades cleared for construction bidding this summer, with substantial completion expected by spring 2027.
None of this changes what a Skyline HOA membership buys or what a private high-bank lot in Rockridge costs. It does raise a real question for anyone comparing neighborhoods with a multi-year horizon: does Old Town's walkability premium widen once a hotel, an event venue, and new restaurant space actually open near Cap Sante, or has the neighborhood already priced in what's coming?
What this means if you're comparing listings
A few things worth checking before assuming a "waterfront" listing and an "in-town" listing are different categories of purchase:
- Ask what the listing is actually granting: deeded shoreline, a shared association dock, or simply a water view with no access at all. Listing sheets rarely spell this out in plain language.
- Weigh HOA dues against the cost of maintaining private water access. One recent Skyline condo listing carried quarterly dues of $1,384 plus a separate annual fee of $260 for park and clubhouse access, numbers worth comparing against insurance and upkeep on a private dock.
- If walkability matters more to your daily life than moorage does, price Old Town against Skyline before assuming the water view is what should decide it. It might be the sidewalk.
A few questions worth asking directly
Does a home with shared HOA marina access appreciate differently than one with a private dock? There isn't enough public sales data broken out this specific way to say for certain in Anacortes. What the current listings do show is a real price gap tied to the ownership structure itself, not just the presence of water. Anyone weighing the two should treat the HOA fee schedule and the association's long-term capital plan as part of the purchase price comparison, not an afterthought.
Will the Cap Sante Marina redevelopment raise Old Town home values? It's too early to say with certainty since construction on the hotel and event facility hasn't started. What's confirmed: the event facility is expected to break ground in fall 2026, and the A-Dock upgrades are set for substantial completion by spring 2027. Buyers with a several-year horizon in Old Town or Central Anacortes are watching the same construction calendar the Port itself has published.
Is Rockridge or Cranberry Heights worth the price gap over Skyline? It depends on what someone wants from waterfront ownership. Recent listings in Rockridge and Cranberry Heights sell privacy and control, meaning no shared dock schedule and no association vote on capital projects, often with more linear feet of shoreline than a Skyline lot could offer. Skyline sells convenience and infrastructure that's already built and paid for. Neither is the better buy in the abstract. They're different products wearing the same word, "waterfront."
Because these gaps move by neighborhood and by access model rather than by a single citywide median, a Zestimate or an average sale price only gets a buyer partway there. The Groesbeck Group at Taby Perron walks Skagit County buyers through these distinctions year-round, from reading a Skyline HOA's fee structure to evaluating a private high-bank lot in Rockridge to thinking through what the Port's Cap Sante plans might mean for a home a few blocks off Commercial Avenue. If you're comparing Anacortes neighborhoods and want the tradeoffs explained in plain terms before you write an offer, Work With Taby.
