What Does A Million Buy?

The King County Journal takes a look in a pair of stories today at the arbitrary big round number $1,000,000 and how much house it buys in the Seattle area these days.

County records show a little over 4,600 homes in King County with an assessed value of at least $1 million. That’s better than one out of every 100 homes in the county.

And as anyone who has shopped for a home recently can tell you, the assessed value of a home is often much lower than the price you’d pay to actually buy it.

There are currently 926 homes and condominiums on the market with asking prices of $1 million or more in King County, said Cheri Brennan, a spokeswoman for the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think that one out of every 100 people in King county are millionaires. But thanks to creative financing, you can “afford” a million-dollar-home on a barely over average salary!

But when it comes to shopping for a home, a million bucks won’t buy anything close to what it used to, particularly on the Eastside and in Seattle.

Case in point: A Mercer Island home on the 4000 block of 85th Avenue Southeast sold in May for $1.15 million by a seller who purchased it 12 months earlier for only $435,000, county assessor’s office records show.

That same home, which was renovated last year before being put back on the market, sold in 1997 for $215,000, according to county records.

Even with the recent improvements, that home, which has four bedrooms, 2½ baths and sits on a quarter-acre lot, would fall short of most people’s definition of a mansion.

No wonder this market has so many people drooling on themselves when they think about buying and selling real estate. But remember, Seattle is not in a bubble. Nope.

(Clayton Park, King County Journal, #2, 10.03.2005)