Three high-end waterfront homes sold in the month of August on the Eastside of the Greater Seattle metro. Two of these sales were in Medina, and the third was on Lake Sammamish in East Bellevue.
Bellevue Waterfront Homes: The Lake Sammamish home was the least expensive, with a 2/3 acre lot and a small beach house, selling for $1.14 million. The house is under 800 sq ft, so it's likely to be someone's weekend getaway or to be razed and rebuilt. This was an estate sale, and the property sat on the market almost a full year, starting out at a $1.8 million listing price.
Medina Waterfront Homes: On the Northeast side of Evergreen Point in Medina, a 4000 sq ft home sold for $2 million, which is a fairly rock-bottom price for Medina waterfront. The lot was nearly half an acre, and the home was built in 1987. The water is very calm in this area (Fairweather Bay), and there are close-in views of Hunts Point and Kirkland. Prices on the East-facing waterfront of Medina are many times less expensive than the West-facing homes, although the moorage facing East can be better.
On Medina's Gold Coast, a West-facing home sold for $6.1 million mid-month. This is North of Highway 520, facing the University of Washington and Laurelhurst, across Lake Washington. With 5 bedrooms, 8 baths, and 8000 sq ft of living space, this home built in 2003 is an exquisite piece of design and construction. The home was on the market for about 16 months, dropping all the way down from $7.9 million.
Sam DeBord and Brian Wiegand
http://SeattleHome.com
There was a flurry of Seattle waterfront real estate activity in August - seems like the nice weather finally brought the buyers out of the shadows. After a slow July, there were quite a few closings last month, from small houseboats to grand waterfront estates. The highlights:
Seattle Houseboats and Floating Homes
There were three houseboats sold in August, with one being a small "house barge", and the other two being true "floating homes". The house barge in Westlake (Lake Union) is a small craft, newly-built, and cozy. With 1 bed and 1 bath, it went for just $65,000 (yes, there are a lot of other costs involved in living here). The two floating homes were on Roanoke Reef and Mallard Cove, higher-end floating home communities in the Eastlake area. These are 2000 sq ft quality homes, with sale prices of $1.1 and $1.2 million. The views from both of these homes are beautiful.
Waterfront Land:
A property on Alki Ave SW in West Seattle sold for just $440,000 with Puget Sound waterfront. It's zoned for low-rise multi-family, so there will probably be townhomes/condos on this lot soon. There's a small house on the lot for now, but not for long.
Two waterfront homes on Beach Dr SW sold for $1.35 and $1.55 million. At 60-70 feet of Puget Sound waterfront, they're very comparable properties and are just a couple of blocks apart. The first home was a 1970s-built remodel with about 2600 sq ft of space. The second is a newly-built home, but a bit smaller at around 2200 sq ft. Both lots are around 5600 sq ft.
North Seattle Waterfront Homes:
Northeast Seattle has some of the most expensive and least expensive waterfront in Seattle. Case in point, our two sales in Cedar Park and Windermere. The Cedar Park home has 75 feet of waterfront on Lake Washington, 2700 sq ft in the 4 bedroom 2.75 bath home, a 50 foot dock, and a covered boat slip with lift. It sold for just $1.3 million after almost a year on the market, a relative bargain on Lake Washington.
Just a couple of miles South, a home in the Windermere neighborhood with very similar stats sold for almost $2.1 million. The Windermere neighborhood is well-known, sought-after, and exclusive. Buyers pay for these factors. This home sold in just one month, which seems to happen a lot in Windermere. When something comes on the market, if it's priced well, it's gone quickly.
Sam DeBord and Brian Wiegand
There were two sales in July of Seattle area waterfront homes on Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish. Between $1 and $1 million, these Bellevue waterfront and Kirkland waterfront homes are in the low-to-mid range of sale prices on the Seattle-area lakes.
Bellevue Waterfront Homes - The Bellevue home sold was on Lake Sammamish, on Bellevue's East end. A smaller home (1500 sq ft), it was suggested in the listing and very likely that it will be rebuilt as a larger home. With 50 feet of waterfront it's big enough to expand, and the vast majority of homes on the waterfront are much larger. The property sold for $925,000 after 6 months on the market.
Kirkland Waterfront Homes - The Kirkland sale was in Woodland Cove, a high-end enclave on the shores of Juanita Bay. On the North end of Lake Washington, this home has 100 feet of South-facing waterfront and about 4000 sq ft of living space. It sat on the market for about 9 months before selling for $2.2 million.
Sam DeBord and Brian Wiegand
http://SeattleHome.com
There were two significant Seattle waterfront real estate sales in the month of July. Both sales were on the Puget Sound waterfront, but coming from opposite ends of the city.
A 2 bed, 2 bath, 1500 sq ft West Seattle home on Beach Dr sold for $930,000 after 4 months on the market. This was clearly a sale based on the land value, the home will very likely be torn down and rebuilt. They didn't even bother putting pictures of the home in the MLS listing. There are very few folks in the Seattle area who will spend nearly $1 million and live in a 1500 sq ft home. The west-facing views should make this a great lot for a new house.
On the North end of Seattle, a Blue Ridge home sold for just under $1 million. This was a 2500 sq ft, mid-century home built specifically for the views. It had been on the market for about 5 months. This is a high-bank waterfront property, so most likely the access to the beach would be through the community Blue Ridge beach/park access. The Puget Sound waterfront in the Blue Ridge/North Beach area is some of the calmest, with great walking beaches and low surf.
Sam DeBord and Brian Wiegand
SeattleHome.com
The newest company to join the Seattle skyline is Russell Investments, formerly of Tacoma, WA. Known for it's industry-standard Russell 1000 and Russell 2000 indexes, the company is well known by investors and institutions across the country. They manage around $150 billion in funds and assets for large institutions and conglomerates.
One of Russell's biggest factors in the decision to move was the availability of inexpensive commercial real estate in downtown Seattle. The WAMU center, assessed for $300 million, was sold by Chase to Russell for just $115 million. The building has been largely empty since Chase took over WAMU operations, but is a prime piece of real estate downtown.
There's always a possibility that these new 900 business-people moving to the Seattle market will give us another small jolt of residential real estate sales over the next year. Tacoma is in the same metro technically, but anyone who has commuted from Tacoma to Seattle knows that it can't last long.
Good luck to the folks from Russell Investments, and welcome to our city. We look forward to a long, fruitful partnership.
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Seattle Real Estate Broker - RE/MAX Connected Dir. of Marketing, SeattleHome.com REALTOR, Green Certified Pro, Waterfront Real Estate
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