North Green Lake On The Rise!

Not only is it filled with early 2000s townhouses, it has also typically been a place of affordable homes that, as an agent, I could rely on for the sub-$500K buyer. Well, that is changing at this very moment.

I have a client who wants to spend no more that $550,000, wants a townhouse, and needs to stay on the north end of downtown for her commute. She also doesn’t want to live too far north, for the same reasons.

We found a cute 3-bed, 2.5-bath townhouse with a nice yard for her. So, I ran the comparable to see what I thought the house would do when the offer review date came. I had somewhat worrisome news for her. I noticed a VERY recent trend when looking at the numbers:

Prior to January, the sales in that neighborhood (described as N 85th to N 90th between Middle Ave and Densmore) had been what I expected. Just under $500K for a decently large townhouse in good shape. However, after January there were a few comparable homes that started to jump in price to over $500K. (There was one anomaly that was smallish and went WAY over $560K).

I expressed my concern that even at our top price, we might not have a very good chance if the trend I’m seeing is accurate. I hoped to be wrong, so I called all the listing agents with pending listings and a few that had sold including the anomalies. The trend I noticed on paper seemed to match with the stories shared with me.

So we offered; we escalated from $475K to $551,500. We had no contingencies, no appraisal, no inspection, nothing. The home ended up with 18 offers and went up to the $600K mark. My client was sad, but we had a candid conversation about what I thought and what might happen, so she was at least prepared. This is significant because up until now, that price point in that area was reserved for new homes, not 2004 townhouses! It would appear that we are looking to add one more affordable Seattle neighborhood into this vast expansion. The issue is once the homes close, they become comparable sold homes, and the next listings will go even higher. Looks like the $500K price point will be pushed even further from downtown this year.