CAPITOL HILL
The sales pitch The last thing Christine Stepherson wants to do when she gets home from work? Get back in the car. So that’s why she and her husband moved to pedestrian-friendly Capitol Hill five years ago, when they were expecting their second child. And the Stepherson clan has plenty to walk to: Volunteer and Interlaken parks are practically in their backyard, and they’re just a quick hike away from the Pike/Pine corridor. Along with proximity to downtown, that high walkability quotient—it ranks an 87 out of 100 on walkscore.com —has made Capitol Hill one of the most sought-after spots for all, um, walks of Seattle life. Which, coincidentally, made it uberattractive to the enviro-evangelist Bullitt Foundation, which announced in March that it would build its new headquarters at the corner of Pike Street and 15th Avenue.
By the numbers With the exception of a couple large spikes in February and December 2009, median sales price in Capitol Hill hovered near $525,000 throughout last year … Four homes sold last February for an average price of $1.65 million.
What you’ll find The occasional bungalow is tucked into the tree-lined streets of the nabe’s northern reaches, but Capitol Hill was built on its stately manors. (They don’t call the two blocks of 14th Avenue East leading up to Volunteer Park “Millionaire’s Row” for nothing.) Median sales figures notwithstanding, Windermere sales associate Deirdre Doyle says you’d be hard pressed to find a house there for between $500,000 and $700,000. “A lot of our inventory tends to be the bigger, older homes,” she says. Unless, of course, you don’t mind sharing an entryway with your neighbors. Five years ago Leigh Sims and her husband bought a home in one of the condo buildings that have sprung up to serve the surge of younger families in the Pike/Pine district. Why does she love it there? You guessed it: “We can walk to everything in our neighborhood,” Sims says. “It’s awesome.”
KIRKLAND
The sales pitch Thirty years ago, the big names in the Kirkland commercial district were a Ben Franklin dollar store and J. C. Penney. Today, they’re Sur La Table and high-end boutique Promesse. And the downtown core isn’t the only part of the well-heeled suburb to get a face-lift. “Kirkland today is not even remotely close to what it looked like 25 years ago,” says longtime resident Roger Blier, CEO and cofounder of the dining membership club Passport Unlimited. “It has a diverse demographic mix.” To see that, you just need to pack a lunch, walk north from downtown, and spread out a blanket in one of the parks along Lake Washington; thanks to the influx of people—and money—that rode Microsoft’s power cords into Redmond, all ages, races, and tax brackets are now represented in what John L. Scott associate broker Jeff Samuelson calls “Seattle’s Sausalito.” And they’re spreading out. Just a quick jaunt south from downtown, the offshoot community Houghton continues to thrive, thanks to the shops and restaurants at Carillon Point.
By the numbers Despite fewer new listings in 2009, the number of homes sold in Kirkland grew by 20 percent last year, compared to 2008 … Price per square foot of homes sold in 2009 was consistently above $200 and peaked at $276 in October.
What you’ll find As with most million-dollar homes in Seattle, values of Kirkland’s mega manses took a hit postbubble, but those in the $500,000 to $700,000 range have held relatively steady. And West of Market, the 15-block waterfront pocket where 1950s bungalows have given way to stately chateaus, remains a desirable destination for old- and new-money newcomers to the community. “As the market improves and gets back to normal,” Samuelson says, “I can’t think of a better place to be than downtown Kirkland.”
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?