Glenn Roberts | Ravenna Park | My Seattle | Lake & Co Real Estate

Green Lake Market Report 2010

Glenn Roberts | Ravenna Park | My Seattle | Lake & Co Real Estate

Green Lake Community Center Pumpkin Hunt

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Tonight - October 22nd and next weekend too.

Glenn Roberts | Ravenna Park | My Seattle | Lake & Co Real Estate

Time for Fun at Green Lake in Seattle

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Swimmers enjoy the half mile and full mile swim in Green Lake 

 Glenn Roberts   |  Ravenna Park  |  My Seattle   | Lake & Co Real Estate

Green Lake Duplex For Sale - Seattle

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Exciting duplex near Green Lake in wonderful Seattle looking for a new owner.

Green Lake Duplex For Sale

Another agent in my office put his own duplex on the market after having owned it for 16 years. He put it on our weekly office tour for new listings and I have to say I was very impressed. I'd love to find a client and write an offer on this property. Ken gave me permission to advertise it how ever I wanted and he hopes I do find a buyer for this great Green Lake Duplex.

I asked Ken a few more questions about this property. Back in 1994 he was looking for a duplex or triplex so that he could live in one unit and rent out the other(s). I know there are buyers around today looking for the same thing. Ken also wanted a terrific location, one that he could enjoy and something that would also be easy to rent out. He didn't want a property with small, chopped up rooms. Spaciousness would be a plus. Although the units are only one bedroom and one bath they are each approximately 1000 square feet in size. Another important thing to him was having off street parking and preferably, a garage or garages.

After looking for a long time he finally located this duplex just three blocks from Green Lake. An added bonus turned up when he realized that this duplex has a lot size of only 1927 square feet. Less yard work for Ken while he lived there and also when he was able to move on. This property is a legal duplex; both units can be rented out without the owner living in one of them. There is a large basement garage and extra storage space there for the tenants' use.

Over the years I've seen Ken painting the exterior of this property and when we toured it last week I could see he took good care of the insides as well. In 2009 he had a new torch-down roof installed. Current rents are $2,170 per month. He is asking $525,000. According to King County tax records the assessed value of this property is $635,000.

I looked around at what has sold recently and what is currently on the market as far as small multis go and was surprised to see that only 3 comparable duplexes have sold in the past 9 months. All properties are about the same square footage as Ken's duplex, but the lots are at least twice as large. These three sold for $570,000, $550,000 and $535,000.

As to the active listings, there are currently only 3 fairly close to Green Lake. They are priced at $499,950, $540,000, and a much larger property at $859,900.

If this sounds like something of interest to you, please give me a call and I'll make arrangements to show it to you.

 Glenn Roberts   |  Ravenna Park  |  My Seattle   | Lake & Co Real Estate

The Newest Listings in Green Lake - Seattle

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Green Lake Listings in the past few days.

AS OF 5/16/2010 

 Glenn Roberts   |  Ravenna Park  |  My Seattle   | Lake & Co Real Estate

Green Lake market Report for April 2010

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Green Lake continues to sell well.

The Green Lake market is looking good this spring. There are currently 85 active residential and condo listings in the area. There are 43 pending sales and 19 closed sales in the past 30 days. That makes for an absorption rate of 4.47 or it would take 4.47 months to sell off the available listings. The absorption rate for the entire city of Seattle is 6.6 using the data for the past 30 days. There were 4076 listings city wide and 616 properties sold.

The townhouse and stand-alone home market was the strongest with  the highest sale of the year closing this past month at $1,280,000. The average price for sold listings was $581,863. On the slow side of things the condo market only enjoyed 4 sales with an average price of $290,000.

There is some question of how the market will fare with the end of the $8,000 and $6,500 tax credits arriving on the 30^th of April. Green Lake has been popular for a long time and we expect sales to continue pretty much as they have been.

Market times were a little faster than they were in the earlier part of the year. Sixty three per cent sold in the first 30 days. Spring is a wonderful time to shop for a new home or an investment property here in Green Lake. Give me a call and we’ll take a look at a few that might meet your needs.

 Glenn Roberts   |  Ravenna Park  |  My Seattle   | Lake & Co Real Estate

The Green Lake Neighborhood

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A description of the Green Lake neighborhood and a study of current market conditions.

The Green Lake Neighborhood is a diverse area that surrounds Green Lake and Green Lake Park. I consider there to be four distinct areas in the neighborhood.

To the southeast of the lake we find a mostly residential area with a small commercial area known as Tangletown. Wikipedia claims it is part of the Wallingford neighborhood, but the residents there cling to Green Lake.  The area has a few condominium and apartment buildings as well as a brewery and many fine restaurants. But mainly, this area is single family residences and some of them are pretty grand.    

The northeast area of Green Lake is the commercial district. Most of the condos, townhouses, and apartments are located in this area in an urban mix with the restaurants, stores, clubs, boutique schools and retail stores. On the fringes one will find many single family homes, but for the most part they do not have the cachet of the southeast quarter.

At the north end of the lake there is a small commercial area which includes a chocolate store, a bakery, a professional building with some fast food and other dining facilities and Lake and Company Real Estate.  Beyond these near the lake establishments is an area that is for the most past zoned for multifamily use and hundreds of zero lot line town homes have sprung up over the past ten years.

West of the lake is a narrow strip of single family housing. In the past it was shunned because one had to cross State Highway 99 to get to the lake, but for the past 15 years affordability has made it popular and residents for the most part are pleased to call this area home.  As one proceeds west and up hill the neighborhood becomes Phinney Ridge and the views both east and west become quite spectacular.

Current Market Report on Green Lake

There are 48 active listings, both single family and condominium, in Green Lake at the present time. They range in price from $182,500-$899,000. Currently there are 37 listings under contract with a value range of $245,000-$1,300,000. The year to date solds number 34, with a low of $278,500 and a high of $1,232,500.

Most listing sell here in the first 30 days on market.

On average, homes tht sell in the first 30 days on market get 98.2% of the asking price. Homes on longer get less, the least being homes on for 90-120 days which receive only 93.3% of what they were asking.

At any rate, the market is active and it is good n Green Lake.

All graphs, maps and data retrieved from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service

 Glenn Roberts   |  Ravenna Park  |  My Seattle   | Lake & Co Real Estate

Washington's most used park

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A brief history and description of Green Lake Park.

Green Lake is the heart and soul of the Green Lake neighborhood.  Once a  remote and relaxing destination for early settlers of  Seattle,  homesteading began in 1888 and has been growing ever since.

The lake is about 260 acres in size and has a maximum depth of 30 feet.  Green Lake Park surrounds the lake and has been described as the most used park in the State of Washington. A 2.8 mile paved and graveled walking, running, skating and biking path encircles the lake and beyond the path are numerous facilities for a wide range of athletic endeavors.

At the south end of the lake is the Green Lake Aqua Theater built in the 1950’s with a grandstand large enough to accommodate 5000 people. Most of it has been torn down now and remodeled to house the Massart Shell House and public rest rooms.  For history’s sake it might be noted that the bands The Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin both played there in 1969.

Moving around the lake to the north we can find a small nature preserve on what is known as Duck Island. People are not allowed to set foot on the island. Today, when walking by we noticed a Bald Eagle in the top branches, probably scoping out a duck for lunch.  At the very north end of the lake is a building known as the Bath House Theater.  It was once just a bath house serving the swimming area still located here but now the building is home to The Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse.

Along the east side of the lake there is a children’s wading pool and nearing the commercial core of the Green Lake neighborhood we find the Green Lake Community Center with Evans Pool , basket ball courts inside and out, conference rooms and craft rooms. Adjacent to the center are baseball and soft ball fields that often double as soccer camp areas or just a good place to sail a Frisbee.  There are two sets of tennis courts, one here at the center and one on the north end. At the south end is a 9 hole chip and put golf course.

Green Lake Park provides hours and hours of outdoor recreation for all ages in many different ways. There is no reason to wonder why it is the state’s most used park. For information on the wide varity of trees in the park look for a book The Trees of Green Lake by Arthur Lee Jacobson.