Orcas real estate sales appear to be on the rise: not meteoric, but plodding uphill slow and steady.

Although the data differs due to varying methods of calculation, statistics point to a general trend of increasing sales.

An April report by the Orcas Island Association of Realtors put the total dollar amount of first quarter sales for 2010 at roughly $8 million, up from $5 million in 2009.

“If 2010 continues as the first three months indicate, it should be a year comparable to 2008. Does that make 2009 the bottom? Only hindsight will tell us for sure, but it kind of looks that way,” read the report.

At this point, “nobody’s saying prices are going to plummet except the doomsayers,” said Orcas realtor Ken Wood. He said the largest influence on the San Juan county real estate prices is Seattle’s market, followed by California’s, and that Seattle wasn’t hit as hard as the rest of the country, suffering value losses of only 20 percent (some estimate Florida prices dropped 50 percent). And while a six-month supply of properties on the market normally holds prices steady, Wood said Seattle currently has only a four-month supply, a relatively low inventory that could send prices swelling.

Orcas Island is a different story – although if Wood is right, a Seattle upswing could eventually change that.

“We’ve got years of inventory on the market right now,” said Wood.

The average time on market for an Orcas property is now 224 days. A big reason for that, he said, is that Orcas sales are almost exclusively discretionary. Owners here are rarely first-time homebuyers, and aren’t desperate to sell, so many just hunker down and wait for prices to recover.

“People who bought at the peak in 2006 or 2007 definitely can’t get what they paid for it now, but a lot of people are simply pulling their homes off the market – they don’t want to sell at a loss,” he said.

Realtor Peter Drape, who compiles the Orcas Realtors Association statistics, said that property sellers are also running up against difficulties when they try to sell at assessed value.

“Assessed value is not representative of real value,” Drape said. “The assessor’s office calls it fair market value. That indicates to someone that this is what their house is worth and that’s what they should be selling it for. On average, homes sold last year sold at 18 percent under the assessed value; it was closer to 20 percent under on vacant land. In 2006 and 2007, properties were routinely selling for two times their assessed value.” Drape said that many recent appraisals are still coming in at below assessed values, and said comparative sales are a stronger indication of current market value.

From the Orcas Realtors Association:

2006 Sales:

72 homes, 4 condos, and 65 vacant lots = 141 sales totaling $80,930,841.

2007 Sales:

61 homes, 6 condos, 51 vacant lots = 118 sales totaling $72,007,100.

2008 Sales:

57 homes, 3 condos, 28 vacant lots = 88 sales totaling $50,114,304.

2009 Sales:

33 homes, 1 condo, 25 vacant lots = 59 sales totaling $26,638,600.

San Juan County senior appraiser John Ridge contributed the following numbers regarding the first quarter, market-value only property sales. This data excludes, for example, family transactions at far less than market values.

2007: 39 sales, totaling 21.3 million

2008: 21 sales, totaling 12.1 million

2009: 13 sales, totaling 7.9 million

2010: 17 sales, totaling 7.5 million

The Sounder also received home sales-only statistics from Estately.com, which compiles data from various area multiple listing services. According to Estately, the first quarter of 2009 saw 12 home sales on Orcas, with an average sale price of $800,000, while the first quarter of 2010 saw 25 home sales, with an average sale price of $400,000.

The numbers from both Ridge and Estately would appear to indicate increased sales, mainly on the lower end of the market.