I certainly agree that Kenmore is great, but Seattle Magazine seems to be a bit confused about a couple of things.

First, Kenmore is not a “neighborhood.” Kenmore is a city. In fact, only one of the “neighborhoods” on their list is actually a neighborhood—Northgate. All of the rest are Seattle-area cities. But whatever.

The bigger issue I have is their brief explanation of why they put Kenmore at the top of their list:

With a 3 percent increase in home value, Kenmore is one of only two suburban cities (Vashon Island is the other) showing positive appreciation from 2007 to 2008. That, a modest median home price ($399,000) and solid scores in all categories put it at the top for 2009.

First-off, those two sentences don’t make any sense together. Kenmore is great because homes are getting more expensive, and it’s also great because homes are modestly priced? Huh?

Secondly, they seem to have just completely made up the “3 percent increase in home value” part. Here’s what local real estate firm Redfin shows for Kenmore home prices:

Looks like their info only goes back about two years, but it shows a pretty clear decrease in home value through that entire period, from $238 per square foot in August 2007 to $215 per square foot in August 2008 to $172 per square foot in August 2009. That’s a 10% decrease from 2007 to 2008, and another 20% decrease on top of that from 2008 to 2009.

The second sentence of the Seattle Magazine blurb makes sense—Kenmore does have modestly-priced homes compared to much of the Seattle area. It’s not clear from the blurb what other “categories” they ranked cities/neighborhoods on that put Kenmore at the top, but the part about home values increasing just seems totally made up.

Copper Lantern Homes is a brand-spanking new development on 182nd Street composed of 33 townhome units. It was built by the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) on a plot of land just over one acre that they purchased in September 2005 for just under a million dollars.

Here’s a photograph of what the property looked like facing North from across the street in December 2007 before LIHI developed it:

The existing house looked like it was in relatively good shape. It probably could have used a new roof, but apparently the previous resident was living in it up until the sale. The vandalized white sign on the curb in the photograph above is the “Notice of Proposed Land Use Information,” which had been posted for nearly a year when the picture was taken. During the year and a half between when the LIHI purchased the property and when they developed it, the house and yard were a magnet for vandalism and illegal dumping.

In 2006, a representative of the Low Income Housing Institute stated that they would “save as many of the tall evergreens as we can.”

Here’s a photograph from roughly the same angle of what the property looks like today:

The trees on the left are on the neighboring property to the west. A grand total of two evergreens—27″ and 52″ in diameter—were saved (out of about 20 or more that originally populated the property—many of which were much larger). They appear on the left in this photograph (taken from within Copper Lantern, facing south-south-east):

The trees on the right are the same trees that appear on the left in the previous photo.

At right is another December 2007 photograph taken from a different angle that includes the same two trees that were left standing. So much for saving very many of the tall evergreens.

In order to purchase a townhome at Copper Lantern, families must have a household income “at or below 80% of King County area median income (AMI).” There are four floor plans: Three 3-story 4-bedroom units, nine 3-story 3-bedroom units, eleven 2-story 2-bedroom units, and ten 1-story 1-bedroom units.

The 4-bedroom units have already sold out, which is not surprising since they were priced a good 40% below comparably-sized homes elsewhere around Kenmore.

Two of the 3-bedroom units have “SOLD” stickers in the windows already (the end units, of course). These still look like they’re priced fairly competitively, at around 10% cheaper than similarly-sized condos for sale nearby.

The buildings that house the two-bedroom and one-bedroom units are still fenced off as the developer puts on the finishing touches. None of these look like they are sold yet. Interestingly, there are at least five two-bedroom units currently on the market just at the end of the block at the condo-conversion “Coventry Place Condominiums” with asking prices $15,000 (around 7%) less than the two-bedroom Copper Lantern units. On either end of 182nd you can find one-bedroom units bigger than those for sale at Copper Lantern on the market with asking prices 17% to 20% less than the Copper Lantern homes.

I understand the desire for “affordable housing,” but in my opinion it is a shame that in this case it comes at the expense of so much natural beauty. It will also be interesting to see how many people rush to sign up to purchase condos with low-income restrictions on the deeds that are priced higher than nearby units that have been on the market for six months to a year.

Here’s a Bothell/Kenmore Reporter article from back in March about the project: Home sweet home for Kenmore’s Copper Lantern