Kenmore is Great, But Seattle Magazine is Confused
Posted by the Kenmore Crow | Filed under Real Estate | No Comments Yet!
Seattle Magazine, which bills itself as “the premier Seattle monthly” put Kenmore at the very top of their “Best Neighborhoods 2009” in their August 2009 issue.
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.
Tags: home values, Real Estate, Redfin, Seattle Magazine
