January 13, 2007

Bellevue: Bright Light, Big City

I reviewed a smaller condo in this building earlier this week. Check out my review of that one for more building info. This one is a 2 bedroom, 1.75 bath on the top floor.

Big difference here, in addition to the size, is the brightness factor due to tall ceilings and lots of windows, including some clerestory windows over the dining and living rooms. There’s also a skylight in the kitchen.

I thought the bathrooms could use a bit of updating, but I feel the unit has a very nice layout ripe with possibility for becoming someone’s chic yet affordable downtown Bellevue digs. The monthly maintenance is $359.

As for “affordable,” in a late 2005 article in the Puget Sound Business Journal, Jeanne Lang Jones quoted Dean Jones, principal of Real Project Marketing, who predicted that “over the next four or five years the average condo price will rise from about $500,000 today to $750,000.” A quick scan of the current condo inventory (either available or subject to inspection) in the downtown Bellevue 98004 zip shows five 2-bedroom units and four 1-bedroom units in the $300s. There were 23 more condos available in the $400K and up range. Just for fun, I looked up condos in New York City to see what a deal we are getting here in Bellevue. Oddly, I found a nicely renovated 1-bedroom “co-op” in midtown for only $479K. (A co-op is the more complicated, older form of a condo–with many important differences–common in New York. If this intrigues you, here’s a detailed explanation of the differences between condos and co-ops that makes for some good bedtime reading.) Not as much of a difference in price as I would have expected, although the monthly maintenance was a whopping $922.

STATS:
Price: $385,000.
Location: 424 102nd Ave SE, #308, Bellevue, WA 98004
Last sale price: N/A
Square footage: 1079 sq. ft.
Bedrooms: 2 Baths: 1.75
http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=315041