Green Lake/Phinney Ridge Comps: Water Adds Dollars

As a follow-up to my post about the King County median prices for April 2007, I broke down the sold statistics available on Redfin for the three months prior to May 14 to see how they compared to the April 2007 NWMLS figures for area 705. Area 705 is the northwest corner of Seattle; it’s a superset of the five neighborhoods I cover since it also includes properties to the north of 85th.

Water evidently makes a difference. All the averages for Green Lake/Phinney Ridge were significantly higher than the area medians. And, compared to other northwest neighborhoods, it’s seems to be more expensive to live near fresh water than salt water. Ballard abuts Puget Sound, but the prices there are a lot lower than in these neighborhoods, which surround Green Lake Park.

Here are the Green Lake/Phinney Ridge comps:

All
3-mo. sold average = $533.000
Area 705 median April 2007 = $444,000
Difference = +20.05%

Houses
3-mo. sold average = $550,000
Area 705 median April 2007 = $475,000
Difference = +15.79%

Condos
3-mo. sold average = $385,000
Area 705 median April 2007 = $295,500
Difference = -30.29%

Other northwest Seattle comps:
Ballard
Fremont/Wallingford

Before I get a lot of email on this, let me say in closing that I know the numbers measure slightly different things. The NWMLS publishes median prices for one month of sales. Redfin presents averages for the previous three months (you can chose longer time periods, but the best comparables are going to be the most recent, which is why I’m sticking with the three-month bracket).

So, no, it’s not a head-to-head comparison. But I still see it as comparing apples to apples, if one of them is better suited for baking pies and the other is good eating. You should gobble up both of these statistics since they each give insight that’s valuable for pricing homes and understanding neighborhood real-estate markets.

Note: All information from sources deemed reliable but not guaranteed.