As a place to call home, Capitol Hill's northeast neighborhood isn't exactly chopped liver.
According to Northwest Multiple Listing Service, the January median price for a home in the 98112 ZIP code checked in at $745,000.
That is almost double Seattle's median home price in the same month. A market update shows the disparity has increased.
As of last week, the median price for the 61 houses on the market in 98112 comes in at $1,150,000.
Admittedly, the 98112 ZIPip code, defined by East Denny Way to the south, 14th Avenue East to the west, and bordered by lake water north and east, includes Madison Park, home of the $800,000-tear-down. But many of the Capitol Hill properties for sale fall within that price range.
"The key at this point is inventory is low," said Dick Baldwin, broker for Windermere Real Estate on Capitol Hill . "The inventory right now is substantially below this time last year."
Everyone wants to live in Seattle, it seems.
And not a few of those people want to live in one of the classic, Capitol Hill box houses built solid as old ships anchored along the leafy streets at the north end of the hill.
But those old houses, many put up between 1900-1910, continue to drift farther out of reach for most people.
During the construction heyday a relatively modest sum would have built your dream home, according to Jacqueline B. Williams in her "The Hill With a Future, Seattle's Capitol Hill 1900-1946." Here's Williams' description of a high-end home: "A larger home, containing a reception hall, sixteen-by-thirty-two foot living room with fireplace, conservatory, dining room, den, butler's pantry, kitchen, kitchen pantry, four large bedrooms, wraparound porch, porte cochere on the north side, and garage cost $12,000."
George Mead, of Mead & Mikell LLC is building a new house for a customer on the corner of 17th Avenue East and Highland Drive.
The 57-year-old Mead grew up on Capitol Hill as one of nine children. His father was a schoolteacher.
"In the old days you could get a house for triple your salary," Mead said. "Those days are gone. With a salary of $100,000 a year you might be able to buy a house for seven or eight times that much."
The house Mead is constructing is a 4,000 square foot, three-story with basement, Tudor-style home.
"They (the owners) were sensitive to fitting in with the neighborhood," Mead said, adding: "The neighborhood is unsullied" compared to the townhouses on 10th Avenue East, characterizing them as "complexes having nothing to do with the neighborhood architecture."
Mead wasn't able to divulge the value of his construction project, but pointed out the more modest house for sale next door is listed at $875,000.
Mead works all over the city but loves working in his old stomping grounds.
"I think it's a great mix of estates and modest homes," he said.
Indeed.
In "Seeing Seattle," his inimitable walking guide, Roger Sale puts his finger on the attraction of the Hill's leafy, north end charm.
"But what Seattle does best is the gradations down from mansion, half a dozen or more of them down to the standard old-style bungalow," Sale wrote, "where the building material is wood, the feeling bourgeois and settled. Capitol Hill...has very little of the lower level of these gradations, but it has marvelous examples in the upper middle ranges moving on up to the very grand. The pride, one might even say the snobbery, of Capitol Hill is that it could be an island and the rest of Seattle could float out to sea and all would be far from lost."
Scott Lowrimore of the Landmark Group moved to the north end of the Hill from Leschi two years ago. During that time, he says, his home has increased in value by $200,000.
"People are crazy to get on Capitol Hill," Lowerimore said.
He invoked the example of a Craftsman style house on 15th Avenue East - four-bedrooms, 2,600 square feet. After three days on the market it fetched $1,085,000, he said.
"People want something more solid than cookie-cutter townhouses," Lowrimore mused. "People say they want to live here because it's so diverse. It's not like 'Whiteville' north of the canal. Otherwise we could be in suburbia."
Windermere's Baldwin spoke of a remodeled 1-and-a-half-story Craftsman on 19th Avenue East, relatively compact with about 1,600 square feet. Listed for $850,000, it attracted five offers and sold for more than the asking price, he said.
"Most anything north of Madison Street," Baldwin said, "anything habitable, couldn't be purchased for less than $750,000."
Who's moving here? Baldwin is asked.
"Early software people," among others, he replied. "You don't buy these houses on your salary."
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