The city of Ocean Shores, includes approximately 12,000 residential and commercial lots. Less than 40% of these lots have been developed.

Ocean Shores has seen a new home start every 3.7 days on average for the past ten years. Commercial development has out paced residential construction in seven of the past eight years with more than $80 million in commercial construction during the past seven years. Construction spending fell slightly in 1997 and 1998 while the city constructed its new city-wide sewer system which was completed in 2000.

Ocean Shores has seen tremendous growth in the number of construction and real estate firms over the past five years. General contractors, licensed to work in Ocean Shores, have grown from 97 in 1994 to 225 in 2005. Specialty contractors (landscape, drywall, electrical, plumbing, etc.) have steadily decreased from 63 in 1994 to 55 in 2000. There are three lumber and building supply companies and nine real estate offices. In both of these trades the number of businesses has remained steady over the past five years.

Ocean Shores has issued 320 to 398 building permits per year for the last five years and new home starts have ranged from 88 in 2000 to a high of 118 in 1997. The average number of new home starts each year is 98. It is estimated that new home starts will increase now that the sewer system is in place. Ocean Shores will have over 181 new home starts for the year 2006!

New things happening in the area:

• New Ramada with Waterpark opened in 2005
• Hogan's Corner has a planned development with an 18 hole golf course, shopping center with grocery store, restaurant and hotel.
• Pacific Beach has a new development "Seabrook, WA", plus new shops and restaurants.

The number of closed sales in all areas of real estate in Ocean Shores have steadily increased over the last five years. If you would like to view graphs of these figures, please send us an email or fill out the form found here. In the comment box mention that you would like to receive the graphs showing the growth in Ocean Shores.

You may also learn more about the economic development of Ocean Shores by visiting our Chamber of Commerce site or the City of Ocean Shores site.