November 6, 2006

Ahead of the Curve!

This week’s most-expensive new listing is an $8.5 million, 6,129-square-foot “secret location” on Queen Anne Hill. I’m not sure how you hide something that large, but I put my PI skills to the test again and located it for dedicated Sweet Digs readers: [Note: I guess I broke a fundamental rule by posting the undisclosed address and I’ve been asked to remove it. Sincere apologies all around.] (it helps that this is my hood … that’s also why I’m going to question the time on market and price).

My trusty QA sidekick lives around the corner and tried to view it after seeing an ad this spring. The Zestimate is $4,125,547 … so, you do the math. Granted, they could have had work done, but since it was built in 1999, I highly doubt it. Given a bad horror movie tagline by the listing agent, the “House of Stone and Light” looks more like a parking garage to me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing work of art on the inside: the staircase has an Escher-esque feel, the red kitchen makes me hungry (I hear red is supposed to put you in the mood … for food) and the library is almost Koolhaas-worthy. The median list price for homes within a one mile radius is just under $1 million.

This week’s least-expensive new listing definitely is ahead of the curve.

This $119,950, one-bed, one-bath Renton condo was built in 1978, but once you get inside it looks like something you’d find being built in downtown Seattle. Maybe the owners knows something we don’t … are the Sonics joining the Hawks and moving to Renton, and the players need a place to hang their headbands? I bet they even bought into the hype and got one of the t-shirts that say, “Renton: Future Home of the Sonics. Ahead of the Key, Baby!”

NOklahoma!

The median list price for condos in this part of Renton is $284,950.