Sales show older homes are gaining value faster

By Elizabeth Rhodes and Justin Mayo, Seattle Times

This two-story, 3,369-square-foot Sammamish Plateau home was built in 1999 and sold for $389,144. It resold in 2004 for $450,000. The square-foot price in 1999 was $116; in 2004, it was $134. Annual appreciation: 3 percent.

Surrounded by luxurious neighborhoods of large new homes, Stuart and Lisa Carson’s 30-year-old rambler was nowhere near the handsomest home in its Sammamish neighborhood.

Still, there were frequent hints that the three-bedroom house, all of 1,560 square feet, might not be the wallflower it seemed.

“We had a note, probably every three months, on our door saying, ‘Call me if you’re interested in selling,’ ” Lisa Carson recalled. When that time came early last year, it sold immediately, delivering 9 percent annual appreciation on the home the couple had owned five years.

Meanwhile, 5-year-old homes nearby — bigger homes with fancy new amenities that the Carsons’ home didn’t have, on streets with sidewalks, which the Carsons’ street lacked — also were selling. And predictably, they were going for many thousands more than Stuart and Lisa Carson got.

But the profit their owners realized told a different story. In case after case, these newer homes dotting the Sammamish Plateau realized significantly less annual appreciation — usually 2 to 4 percent — than the Carsons’ nearby rambler did.

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