THE BRAND NAMES
Those who don’t live there want to, and those who live there never want to leave.
ALKI
The sales pitch Good luck getting four-year Alki resident and editor of the neighborhood’s newsletter, Glynnis Vaughan, to spill sexy sound bites on what she calls one of Seattle’s best-kept secrets. “We’re only prepared for the crowds during the summer months,” she protests half-heartedly. Fair enough, Gylnnis. We’ll do it for you: There are two and a half miles of walkable beachfront with honest-to-goodness sand. There are unmatched views of the downtown skyline and Vashon Island. There’s a zoo’s worth of beasts on display—from tiny tide-pool critters to big, barking sea lions—along the beach. There’s the wealthy residents’ relaxed, no-pretense vibe. And then there’s the beach—or did we mention that already? Glynnis, you wanna get in the last word? "Our community truly has a commitment to preserving the uniqueness of our region, and of course we have our landmark Statue of Liberty in our waterfront park.” See—even she can’t help but mention the beach!
By the numbers Even after the market adjustment of the last two to three years, median home values in Alki ($499,750) are still the seventh highest in Seattle, behind Madison Park, Sand Point, and Queen Anne.
What you’ll find “The feel of Alki has changed quite a bit over the last couple of decades,” says Keller Williams agent Kristen Meyer Lapriore. Chichi condos—some priced as high as $2 million—have pushed out many of the beach bungalows that used to line Alki Avenue Southwest, but get off the main drag and you’ll still find plenty of those funky little pads on the inner streets. And—no surprise here—it’s those condos that tend to sit on the market, while well-priced single-family homes continue to get snatched up by Seattleites in search of sand.
QUEEN ANNE
The sales pitch Julie Whitehorn believes there’s a perception among some Seattleites that Queen Anne is a wealthy, elitist community that doesn’t take well to outsiders. “There’s a joke that goes, How do you know if someone lives in Queen Anne? They tell you,” she says. “But it’s much more likely that the people I know won’t tell you that they live there, because they’re concerned that they’ll have an instant bad reputation.” Lost in all of the talk of Queen Anne’s proximity to downtown, stellar views, and high-end homes, she says, is the neighborhood’s intense volunteerism and crazy-high level of community involvement. Whitehorn got involved with developing the Queen Anne Farmers Market in 2007—after helping to save the Metropolitan Market—and since then, she’s been shocked by the amount of support she’s received. “We had some doubters who felt that we couldn’t do this, that it would take too much time and effort,” she says. “But I have people knocking on my door and calling, saying, “How can I help?”
By the numbers The number of homes for sale in Queen Anne jumped to 161 in October 2008, but had dropped to 89 in January 2010 … Average sales price topped $600,000 for all but one month in 2009 … In ’08 and ’09 Queen Anne had, on average, 4 percent fewer houses on the market than Magnolia per month, but it sold 17 percent more homes over that same time period.
What you’ll find Of course, Queen Anne got its rep as a tony enclave from those qualities that Whitehorn tries to downplay. “That’s what you see from the city,” says Windermere associate broker Lisa Strain. “You look up and you see these beautiful homes that have giant view potential.” (And—spoiler alert—you’re going to pay for those views.) But like Capitol Hill, Strain points out, there’s much more diversity than you might expect: “You get multifamily buildings, town houses, and $3 million properties, all within two blocks of one another.” Just ask Whitehorn. “I live in a thousand square feet,” she says. “And so do most of my friends.”
Published: May 2010
I live on a floating home. I consider all of the other floating home residents as part of my neighborhood. They might be on Portage Bay, Westlake, Northlake or Eastlake but we all have the same fantastic place to live. Maybe they should call Lake Union a neighborhood and see how it stacks up.
I’m biased as I’ve lived there about 10 years or so, but Juanita/Kenmore area is absolutely stunning, reasonably priced, SAFE, one of the best school districts in the state and you have 300+ acres of hiking, mountain biking trails right down to Lake Washington and nobody realizes it!!
You can file BARGAINS here! My house even post-bubble is still worth 3x what I paid for it 10 years ago. It’s incredible.
For you commuters, you are going to find a better spot (unless you are rich!) for a family with someone working in Bellevue and the other person working in Seattle.
It only takes me 20 minutes to get to downtown Seattle and my girlfriend only has to drive 20 minutes tops to get to Factoria.
Kirkland is a 5 minute backroad drive. We have 5 parks right on Lake Washington within a 5 minute drive for the farthest park!
We never get any respect with these polls because nobody realizes the scoop about this area.
You can jump on the other areas “holding steady” or you can jump on an area that will appreciate in value big time in the coming years. You decide… :P
P.S. If you are a crappy neighbor, please disregard this comment. It’s terrible here, please go live in Alki or somewhere else! hahahaha!
Hi Seattle Met,
I live in Columbia City and couldn’t help but notice how incredibly incorrect your statistics are for our neighborhood! 1 % non-white? Spend 5 minutes in Columbia City and you can see that stat is wrong! Also 0 percent kids under 12? O percent of our residents have B.A. degrees? Don’t know where you are getting your stats but I do hope the other neighborhoods are more correctly portrayed!
I have lived in Columbia City for 2 years now and could not be happier with our choice…. the downtown is adorable, has lots of restaurants, a bakery, a meat shop, banks, coffee shops, the farmer’s market is great, tons of parks (Seward, Genessee, Lake Wash boulevard near by and the new Jefferson Park going on on top of Beacon), a great dog park, the light rail is awesome for us since we work downtown, and the central location makes it easy to zip north or south on I-5 or hop on I-90 to the eastside…. love this neighborhood…. 5-7 mins to Capitol Hill…. I could go on and on…. thank you for mentioning us.
Edmonds doesn’t make the list? What’s wrong with Bellevue? Oooooh, take that you old money people!
They should have given more affordable neighborhoods some credit. Parts of Burien are pretty good. Des Moines and even SeaTac, too. (McMicken Heights) Lynnwood has some choice places. (Lynndale Park, Meadowdale)
I might choose Snohomish over Woodinville.
I enjoyed both the writeups and charts, but it would be nice to know where some of the statistics come from. Also, the article might be better titled “Best Places to Buy 2010” since it entirely focused on for-sale property. That got a little strange for places like Capitol Hill, where it’s much more common to rent, especially among young families who are just beginning careers.
So a few of you want to know where they got the statistics & demographics?
It’s on the right side of the web page (silly).
http://www.seattlemet.com/real-estate/articles/neighborhoods-by-the-numbers/
Thankfully I read all the comments. This site is misleading.
Thank you for the article. My family of three is looking to relocate from Spain to the Seattle metro area prior to the 2011 – 2012 school year. Are there any residents in need of a multiple month house sitter?
looking to relocate to Seattle area next summer and need guidance on best programming available for my two autistic sons….appreciate any guidance.
Kathleen Brennan- I would love to assist your real estate needs. I am a broker in West Seattle, a resident of North Seattle and a fun of many neighborhoods!! Please feel free to check out my website www.bigsoundhomes.com. Take care!
Weird that Wallingford and Fremont aren’t mentioned since they are such great neighborhoods. But then again, this is entirely focused on housing sales, so that probably explains it.
What areas have some of the best schools for children?