National sta­tis­tics notwith­stand­ing, there are neigh­bor­hoods where homes retain their value.  This is espe­cially true for homes that are only slightly less desir­able than the very best in the same upscale neigh­bor­hood. That’s true, for exam­ple, for Kirk­land homes west of Mar­ket Street and, across Lake Wash­ing­ton, it applies to Seattle’s Capi­tol Hill neigh­bor­hood.  In both neigh­bor­hoods, the sup­ply of homes these days is sparse.

One of my clients who moved from NY City to Seat­tle in the Spring of 2010 was inter­ested in buy­ing a home in Capi­tol Hill. After a few weeks of look­ing at sev­eral homes there and also in the Queen Anne area, he and his wife decided to wait a while and rent instead. They were and still are look­ing in the 750,000 to 1 mil­lion price range in Capi­tol Hill. As the graph below illus­trates, that’s not get­ting any eas­ier with a dwin­dling inventory.

The price per square foot over the same period fluc­tu­ates but shows no con­sis­tent down trend.

For homes listed from $1 to $1.5 mil­lion the sup­ply is nat­u­rally small but it is fairly steady over the months.  In fact, in Decem­ber 2011 there were twice as many homes for sale in this price range than in the $750,000 to $1 mil­lion range.

Sold in 4 days 14 per­cent above list price

Look­ing at the Capi­tol Hill homes that sold in 2011, one in par­tic­u­lar caught my eye. It was on the mar­ket for just four days and sold for $1,025,010 which is some 14 per­cent above the $899,950 list­ing price. I did not have the oppor­tu­nity to see the home in per­son but, judg­ing by the pic­tures, it may have been worth the price. The home sold last in 2003 for $680,000 which trans­lates into an annual appre­ci­a­tion of about 5 percent.