Affordable houses are a thing of the past
A current snapshot of Madison Park’s real estate market
reveals an extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented situation: there is only a single house available for
sale at under $1 million—and that one is priced at $900,000 Moreover, there is virtually no other inventory
of housing available close to the million-dollar mark. The median price of a listed house in Madison
Park is over $2.7 million. That’s the highest median value for listings we have
seen in the more than five years we’ve been covering the neighborhood’s real
estate scene.
Of the 19 single-family residences currently for sale here, there
are only two that would pass as “affordable” (using the Madison Park definition
of that term). Those two are priced at
$1,082,000 and $1,328,000 respectively.
You’ll have to pay almost $2 million for any one of the next four
higher-priced houses on the active list, with the remaining 13 for-sale houses ranging
in price from $2.4 million to $4.5 million.
And as might be expected, all of these houses are big. There is only one residence on the market boasting
less than 3,000 sq. ft., and the median size of the 19 homes is a whopping 4,200
sq. ft.
As is obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention, Madison
Park has increasingly become “rarified” in recent years, bungalows making way
for mega-houses. Based on current listings, it’s clear that the audience for
single-family homes in Madison Park today is principally divided between the
pretty wealthy and the very wealthy. Of
course Madison Park wannabes can still rent an apartment here or even purchase
a condo at a relatively low price point.
Of the five condos currently available for sale, four range in price from
$300,000 and $400,000, with the remaining condo listed at just under $1
million. The median size of the five condos,
however, is just 970 sq. ft.
 |
| This house at 825 Hillside Dr. is priced at the median for listed homes: $2,745,000. |
Here’s the state of the market as we head toward winter:
Houses
Listings: 19
Median List Price: $2,745,000
Median Sq. Ft.: 4,200
Median Price per Sq. Ft.: $653
Average Days on Market: 64
Percentage with Price
Reductions: 26%
New Listings: 9
Pending
Sales: 4
Condos/Townhouses
Listings: 5
Median List Price: $400,000
Median Sq. Ft.: 970
Median Price per Sq. Ft.: $412
Average Days on Market: 172
Percentage with Price
Reductions: 60%
New Listings: 1
Pending Sales: 1
House sales in the third quarter exhausted the available
inventory of lower-priced abodes. The
median sales price of properties sold during the quarter was $1,475,000. That is $1,300,000 (or 48%) less than the
median price of houses currently available in the neighborhood:
$2,745,000. Seven of the 28 houses sold
were under $1 million and only one house sold last quarter for more than the
current median list price for houses in this market.
This is the breakdown of sales during the last quarter:
Houses
Sales: 21
Median Sale
Price: $1,475,000
Average Sq.
Ft.: 3,430
Average
Price per Sq. Ft.: $431
Average
Days on Market: 48
Average
Discount from List Price: 1.7%
Condos
Sales: 7
Median Sale
Price: $365,000
Average Sq.
Ft.: 949
Average
Price per Sq. Ft.: $385
Average
Days on Market: 56
Average
Discount from List Price: 4.0%
 |
| One of eight under-$1 million sales last quarter: 1031 32nd Ave. E. |
Here’s a critical data point about third-quarter sales in
Madison Park: houses sold in just 48 days on average, with condos taking only
slightly longer to change hands (56 days).
Of the houses sold there were only two outliers in terms of time on the
market. No houses other than these took
more than 60 days to sell, and the back story on one of the two is pretty good:
the seller held out for the original list price and won the bet after 455
days. That house sold for
$2,250,000. This was clearly not what’s
referred to as a “motivated seller”.
And speaking of successful, we should include the sellers
(eight of the 21) who sold their houses at their original list price or at a
premium to list. The biggest winners in
that regard were two sellers who achieved more than an 8% premium on their
houses, selling them in 6 and 8 days respectively. Most houses that were sold were very well
priced to market, with only two homes taking a double-digit hit: 12% in one
case and 13% in the other. These houses
both sold in less than 30 days, proving either that there are some motivated
sellers still left in the market or perhaps just some who are not keeping up on
what’s possible in this inventory-challenged environment for sellers who are
willing to wait.
Condo sales were also brisk (only one outlier among seven
sales taking longer than 75 days), and the sold properties for the most part
changed hands at or above their original asking prices. The sales ranged from a 680 sq. ft. unit
going for $335,000 to a 1,113 sq. ft. unit unloaded at $705,000. The sold prices of condos, on average,
achieved 99.88% of the final list
prices of those properties, which is a pretty good statistic for any market.
[
Photo at top: 1535 Parkside Drive E., a 7,020 sq. ft. mansion on a Broadmoor golf course fairway, is the most expensive house currently on the market, listed at $4,500,000. All photos via Redfin.]
[Thanks to Laura Halliday of Windermere Real Estate for her
help in compiling the sales data. Listing data courtesy of Redfin, using information from the Northwest
Multiple Listing Service.]
