Best Neighborhoods 2009: Your Best Investment Bet

Choose a home in one of these places and you know the value will hold for the long term. Solid, popular, but not outrageously priced, these are the places you can settle into for a year--or a lifetime.

Highland Park
Michelle Turcinec and her husband were living in West Seattle’s Alki neighborhood when they decided it was time to buy a house. They wanted to stay in the vicinity, and their real estate agent suggested they take a look at another West Seattle neighborhood.

“Our real estate agent said if we were trying to use the least money to get the largest square-foot-lot we could, then we should look in Highland Park, where the lots were a little bigger, and you got a bigger house for the money.” They took a look, found a great house for the money, bigger yards than were often the case in West Seattle and moved in—and fell in love with the neighborhood. It’s like Brigadoon, Turcinec says; everyone knows everyone else on their street; neighbors mow one another’s lawns; and her kids attend a wonderful and diverse parochial school nearby.

But there’s more: Just a few minutes away from her house is the kid-friendly Westwood Village with Eats Market Cafe (it’s got the best desserts, she says), as well as the nearby Vatsana Thai (“fabulous”). Add to that a Costco that’s just five minutes away, plus the incredible ease of getting downtown, and you have a neighborhood that’s not missing much, Turcinec says.

Highland Park, with the aforementioned amenities plus a plentiful supply of ramblers and smaller 1940s- and 1950s-era homes (many on quiet streets surrounded by tall, mature trees and rhodies), is a neighborhood likely to continue rising in value or at least hold its own in the current depressed market, says Westwood John L. Scott agent Linda Kastner. “Property values are good there, holding steady, and you can always find a place that you can get a foot in the door with.”

Green Lake
A large photo board near the Green Lake Bathhouse (now a theater) shows the neighborhood circa 1900: Small bungalow and Craftsman homes surround all sides of the lake with roads angling up and away. Today, those same homes—now often showing signs of remodeling and surrounded by tall trees and other vegetation—dominate the landscape, and the 2.8-mile trail that rings the lake is almost always crowded with runners, walkers and bikers.

Living here, says Michael Cornell, chairman of the Green Lake Community Council, is “a lot about lifestyle. People just love having everything they need within walking distance. And we have the most popular park in the state on our doorstep. Green Lake is just a very special place to be. People love the neighborhood and work very hard to make it great.”

Locals clearly love to eat out—they support numerous restaurants around the lake and a few blocks away—and Cornell says he can always be sure of running into friends and acquaintances no matter where he has a meal, especially at a few places that epitomize the neighborhood. “There’s Duke’s [Chowder House], a Seattle institution,” Cornell says. “Then there’s the Green Lake Bar and Grill.” Add to the list the fine dining at Nell’s, the iconic Spud Fish and Chips and popular coffee shop Zoka, in Green Lake’s Tangletown neighborhood on North 56th Street.

The neighborhood, where you’ll see young families walking side by side with old-timers, clearly caters to athletes. While runners love the trail—and the nearby Super Jock ’N Jill running store and Title Nine women’s athletic clothing store—there’s also rowing (a parks department rowing center is here), kayaking, swimming (in the lake and at a public pool) and yoga opportunities at a number of area studios.