welcome to seattlemodern.com
cool modern ARCHITECTURE, and architect-inpired design, for sale in Seattle and surrounding areas
a production of Madison Partners Real Estate.
Webmaster/assoc broker: Tom Holst
online since 1999 !
A photocollage of the last week in June '09's new listings appear below the new map. The map below will now link you to our direct feed "IDX" so you can look up properties for sale without needing to go to any other real estate web search site, because the same information they offer the general public is now available here. This IDX database is continually daily updated. Be sure to contact us: (206-841-0003), for further information or for showings. Below this are pix of actual listings for this week that have been specifically selected for their modern architectural uniqueness.

Click on this map to fill in your specifications for area, size, etc to see what is on the entire market now via this IDX connection to all the listings available, and/or view the pictures below to see just the hand selected new modern ones, and contact 206-841-0003 or email: moderntom@yahoo.com


In these new for late June'09 images below, one is the home of a noted author (the empty bookshelves), another, in Edmonds, by a noted NW 1950/60's modernist architect, still living, still working...


Here's a note regarding the tendancy by sellers to over-price or under-price your home This is crucial for all sellers. CALL for a price analysis that includes and uses CURRENT and PENDING sales data, information that you do NOT and will NOT get from Zillow and similar sites that depend on tax assessor data, and don't have the "personal" touch and specific individual experience we can bring.
CALL: 206-841-0003 for your free modern market price analysis.

New Video Below: Our associate broker Tom Holst spoke with documentary film maker Gavin Froome awhile back to assist in getting access to some of the local architects "modern masters" and  inform him about local neighborhoods for this brand new documentary film: Here's the trailer:

Coast Modern Film Trailer from Coast Modern on Vimeo.

Now, back to hard to find, often not listed, architecturally modern homes:

< Northend 4 bathrooms 4 bedrooms $499K built 1953 on 13,000+ sq ft lot.
<$575K easy access to downtown Seattle, gorgeous setting

<HOW ABOUT A HOUSEBOAT, Lake Union, easy access to Fremont and Queen Anne, houseboat is 64' by 16'  that's over 1,000 sq ft per two floors PLUS over 1,000 sq feet of upper deck, with an 8 person hot tub. Sleep six comfortable below with 2 queen beds and 1 double bed: $229,000 price. Here's an interior shot:

Kirkland below, 3 jetted tubs, on A WHOLE ACRE of land in valuable KIRKLAND! and priced in the $900's:


Below is located in Shoreline near the border of beautiful Edmonds: 3BR 1.75 baths, amazingly built in 1949! Design WAY AHEAD of it's time, great lines, modern classic, great lot, and the price: check it out: $319,000!!!: (the home's 60th birthday party this year!!!)


HILLTOP LOT: A vacant lot now available but not yet listed as of late May '09, in the fab "Hilltop" area of Bellevue, a midcentury modern historic area of incredible modernist houses just south of I-90 surrounded by Bellevue, price just SLASHED to $399K !!
 
A MEDINA mid century modern house, 4BR, two levels, decks, water view, priced at $650K so call now NOT near the 520 freeway noise, it's QUIET!! the lot alone is worth more than this in the richest area anywhere:


How about a Shoreline area midcentury modern, big lot, not yet listed, price is now $359K:


Here's a few more, Kirkland, Bainbridge, northend, etc: all not in the MLS yet, but available or soon to be available: This one below,  built in 1954, is in a quiet pastoral peaceful area and is priced at only $575K:
   

And another newer modern:
 
 



In the next few weeks I'll be, finally, going back to showing a LOT more detail and a lot more listings as we will should have and be able to select from, an IDX feed for this site to thereby meet the MLS rules to show the actual listings, an issue we have until now been struggling with in terms of giving you all as MUCH information about as many cool looking architectural listings as possible. Stay tuned...

Our associate broker, Tom Holst, is in The Wall Street Journal!!! here's the article, it discusses how a "brand name" architect, even one not that well know or unheralded or obscure, can add value to a home, ESPECIALLY in a falling real estate market., here's some excerpts from the reporters discussion with several real estate agents including ours:


Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W8, including photographs taken by me:

A 1950's house in Seattle              (photo by Thomas Holst, for the Wall Street Journal)

Many of these midcentury homes were built as inexpensive builder-homes, not one-of-a-kind architectural works, and the workmanship doesn't always hold up well over time. Others weren't constructed for their surroundings: Flat-roofed homes built by Mr. Rummer, the Oregon developer, are now as noted for their leaks as their architectural style. As for size, many of the homes are small by contemporary standards, around 2,000 to 3,000 square feet, and have little garage space, if not just a carport.

Those kinds of issues made it challenging for Houston rocket engineer Tim Glover to get his 1955 home appraised at what he thought was a fair value. Smitten by the brick exterior, low-pitched roof and terrazzo floors -- a look he says was popular the same time he got "fired up about the space program" -- Mr. Glover bought the house in August for $245,000. Mr. Glover had to go through three appraisers before getting the results he sought. "It was definitely the worst part of the whole house-buying process," he says.

In Seattle, Microsoft managers Larry Wall and Claudia Filipoaia have a different frustration with their Lyndon B. Johnson-era home. They bought the 1965 home in September, in part to showcase two modern collector's items -- a Charles and Ray Eames chair and George Nelson clock. And though they love the design, they didn't take into consideration that their $800,000 home's garage, a converted carport, would only be 16 feet deep. Now, they're shopping for a car that can squeeze inside. "A Subaru won't fit," Mr. Wall says.

Architect Ben Dombar's former home

The original modernists, like Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, made their names in the early 1900s building houses that reacted against classical architecture -- simple designs without arched windows, moldings and other ornamentation. With their low-pitched or flat roofs, sharp lines and large expanses of glass, these homes became fairly easy to identify and copy for architects who followed. In many cases, the midcentury modernists took the early modernists' ideas and developed them for the masses, often on the cheap for tract homes.

Enter the Preservationists

But with the boom in homes by Lautner and Neutra, preservationists have started focusing their attention on their local contemporaries. Greenway Parks, a neighborhood in Dallas that is known for houses built between the 1920s and 1950s, recently passed restrictions to discourage the demolition of original homes. Earlier this year, Scottsdale, Ariz., designated two 1950s modern neighborhoods as historic districts, and gave the city the ability to delay the destruction of any homes for as much as a year. There's even a new group in Cincinnati that is working to find "end-use" buyers for "endangered" homes.

The price run-ups for the lesser-known architects are making happy customers of early adapters like Bill Stuart. A medical researcher in Cincinnati, Mr. Stuart last month bought a 1953 two-bedroom home by Benjamin Dombar, who apprenticed under Wright. Although he didn't know about Mr. Dombar before purchasing the home, he immediately got two offers to resell from fans who hadn't bid fast enough. One person offered $325,000, or $55,000 more than Mr. Stuart paid. While Mr. Stuart says he never considered taking the offers, they were an eye opener. "The house might be worth a lot someday," he says.

Thoroughly Midcentury Modern:

Cities around the country each have their own crop of home-grown midcentury architects and developers, most of whom are little known outside the region. Here's a guide to some MCM figures who brokers say were influential in five major markets.

CITY/ARCHITECT	HOME CHARACTERISTICS	COMMENTS
Dallas/Howard Meyer	Brightly painted front doors, window shades	People here knock on doors to see if owners of homes by this architect are willing to sell, says broker Douglas Newby. There are around 20; some can sell for 25% more than comparable properties.
Phoenix/Al Beadle	Steel frames, foundations on stilts	Beadle designed around 40 single-family residences, as well as multifamily housing and tract developments in the Phoenix area. Price appreciation for his projects is outpacing the rest of the local market, says broker Scott Jarson.
San Diego/Homer Delawie	Hillside homes on posts, floor-to-ceiling glass-walls	Multiple offers for homes by this architect and others like Lloyd Ruocco and Russell Forester are increasingly common, says broker Elizabeth Courtier. "It's nice to be recognized again," says Mr. Delawie, 78 years old.
Sarasota, Fla./Paul Rudolph	Covered porches, flat roofs	Rudolph was part of a group of architects who flocked here after World War II. There are about 100 midcentury homes in good condition in the area, but they don't usually carry a premium in resale, says agent Martie Lieberman.
Seattle/Paul Hayden Kirk	Japanese-influenced design like Shoji screens, courtyards	Houses by this Northwest modern architect can fetch 10% to 15% more than comparable homes, but in the current hot real-estate market some are being torn down, says broker Tom Holst.

Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@dowjones.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W8

BUY OR SELL YOUR MODERN PROPERTY HERE THROUGH ME. This site created and maintained by associate broker/real estate agent Tom Holst, contact me to buy or sell your modern property: cell: 206-841-0003, email: moderntom@yahoo.com