Seattles Urban Villages » Montlake

Seattle Real Estate Values for 3rd Quarter 2008 Released by Zillow

Deborah Burns — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:26:26 +0000

Yesterday Zillow released its’ Seattle Real Estate Trends for the third quarter (July, August, September) of 2008 and posted that Seattle home values decreased -7.53% compared to the third quarter of 2007. As a point of comparison, Zillow reported that home values Nationally decreased -9.7% for the same quarter.

I clicked through the links: Seattle Real Estate Trends, to Click for Seattle values and, on the left under Seattle, the Excel icon , I found 5 tabs at the bottom of the page. There was a “Summary”, “Metro Area & County”, “City”, “Neighborhood”, and “Glossary”. I found the information shown under City and Neighborhood to be the most interesting as the values data that Zillow has compiled is broken down to what most Seattle home buyers and Seattle home sellers will find the most interesting; their particular neighborhood or city.

These numbers are “Year over Year” of the “% change for the Zillow Home Value Index or “Zindex” over the last year (12 months)”. In other words, Zillows “Zestimate“, the median value for homes for in that area, and the percent less value compared to last years’ Zestimate median value.

Now, these Zillow numbers are not just the actual sales based numbers like the numbers calculated by the NWMLS, although actual sales data is used by Zillow as a part of calculating Zestimates, so they are a model for comparing value. This makes the numbers a good tool for understanding value and comparing value, but are not the only way to measure an individual homes’ value.

A snapshot of Year over Year % for a few areas/neighborhoods of current interest to me (as well as current and recent clients) are:

Beacon Hill -8.0%

Clyde Hill -4.4%

Columbia City -12.7%

Magnolia -8.3% (Magnolia is shown twice)

Magnolia -6.5%

Mercer Island -6.3%

Montlake -7.0%

Normandy Park -5.8%

Queen Anne -4.7%

West Seattle -7.4%

Just follow through the links to find the City or neighborhood that interests you, and check out the numbers…they are very interesting!

Opening Day of Boating in Seattle!

Deborah Burns — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:02:27 +0000

It’s gray, drizzly and the first Saturday in May which means it’s the Opening Day of Boating season in Seattle! The Seattle Yacht Club in Montlake, is celebrating their 87th year of kicking off the Opening Day of Boating in Seattle.

A few days ago the boats began tying up to the log boom just outside of the Montlake Cut outlining where the Parade of Boats will travel and the rowing regatta for the Windermere Cup will race. While driving back to Seattle from my office in Bellevue, I stopped near the Museum of History and Industry in Montlake to take a look at the boats lining up and mooring at the log boom to take some photos.

While I was there, I watched a lot of boat traffic going by, large and small (check out the friendly guys in the little boat!) and saw the Montlake Drawbridge go up to let some of the taller boats pass.

Last year I was lucky enough to be showing houses to a client from N.Y., and two of the Seattle houses listed for sale were right on the Montlake Cut. While we were viewing the Montlake homes for sale, we got a nice view of some of the festivities. It was fun to have, even if only for a moment while working, a waterside view on Opening Day of Boating!

Montlake Neigborhood of Seattle

Deborah Burns — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:00:38 +0000

Montlake Neighborhood of Seattle has many charming Tudor Homes

Montlake, one of Seattle’s Urban Villages…is where I have been spending a lot of time these past few weeks. I am working with some out of state sellers as their Seattle Real Estate Agent to prepare their house to enter the Seattle Real Estate market when we list their Montlake home for sale later this spring. It has been an interesting project for me and it will be exciting to see it to it’s conclusion.

520 Freeway Bridges that pass through the Montlake Neighborhood and the Washington Park Arboretum

The Montlake neighborhood lies just south of the University of Washington across from the Montlake cut, north and down the hill from Capitol Hill, east of Portage Bay and Eastlake, and west of the Arboretum and Lake Washington. It has great accessibility to Downtown Seattle, as well as Bellevue and The Eastside via the 520 freeway which runs through Montlake…in an interesting way. The freeway is mostly bridges over water and provides motorists with some great views of wildlife on their commute!

Tudor Home in Montlake

The homes, built mostly in the 1920’s, are made up of brick Tudor and Craftsman styles of single family homes. The market history for the month of March has just sixteen total homes comprising it. The eight that are active as of April 1st range between $549,000 to $879,000. Three are STI (Subject To Inspection) ranging between $847,000 and $1,250,000, Four are Pending ranging between $609,900 and $959,000. Only one closed for the month selling for $734,000. This puts Montlake well above the median price for homes sold in King County, $429,925, in February.

Now that spring had arrived Montlake is especially beautiful right now, good timing for the springtime Seattle Real Estate rush!

Originally published on my first

Seattle’s Urban Villages Real Estate blog

on April 2, 2007:

http://seattlesurbanvillages.typepad.com/seattles_urban_villages/2007/04/montlake.htmlOriginally