Seattle Business Weekly just published a list of the various prices in different King County communities. King County is by far the most expensive Washington county, for sales and rents.
Most expensive are the high end eastside communities like Bellevue, Kirkland, Mercer Island, and ultra high end Lake Washington communities like Yarrow Point, Clyde Hill, Hunt's Point and Medina. Next is Seattle. While there are extremely expensive residences in Seattle like downtown, Washington Park, etc., these are greatly diluted by all the less expensive homes and condos to make for a lower average and median. I think that overall, the Eastside is more expensive than Seattle, and Seattle is more expensive than north King County, and South King County.
There is a strong preference on this board for suburban and exurban and rural living. But that does not seem to be the case in a wider group. Even Metros in the Midwest where the robbers are often ahead of the cops, downtown living has picked up. My Central Seattle Condo has doubled in price in 4 years. For me it is perfect. My girlfriend and I have been going to symphonies and music salons and art galleries frequently. Catch a bus across from my building, downtown in 10 minutes, Or if the weather is better than it has been lately, walk in 25 minutes. We can have a drink or snack before returning home with no concern about driving rules. (Neither of us will drive if we have had anything alcoholic to drink.)
I did live out of town, and like the 60 miles to the beach, 60 miles to the mountains realtor's slogan, 60 miles to the city tends to make evening trips few and far between, or at least it did for me and everyone else that I knew.
Similar to when I lived in the East Coast. I loved NYC, but going into the city did not appeal to me, other than an occasional trip in on the train.
It all depends on what you like. I have no wife to mollify with a big house, so true urban living is really no more expensive for me than other choices that I already know are not so attractive to me. Also, although Seattle obviously does have crime, not enough to trip my "get out of Dodge" warnings.
Ha
With only one of me, I don't need the hassle of a place that big. We are having a bit of a housing bubble here too, right now, but I have never seen a home sell for more than the asking price.
