Editor’s note: NextMLT published this analysis of the current townhome market in Mountlake Terrace Town Center, plus what is expected in the future. We are reposting it here with permission.

Townhomes are an important missing-middle solution to providing a diversity of housing choices. They are a popular choice for those who don’t want the cost or maintenance of extra land. In a fairly walkable neighborhood with good access to parks and recreation opportunities, Town Center townhomes can be a good choice for singles, families or those looking to downsize.

While the older stock of smaller single family unattached homes in the city can still be bought in the $400,000s, prices for larger new homes are pushing $900,000. While many may not consider new townhome prices “affordable”, they are 30% or so less than new unattached single family homes. They are certainly more affordable in that sense.

The truth is that new housing is expensive regardless, but if we do not increase the supply of new housing in our region it increases the demand on the limited stock we have. Additionally, building more new housing keeps those with high incomes from moving down market and out-bidding those with less income for the existing housing stock.

Existing Town Center townhomes

In the Town Center new townhomes haven’t come on the market since 2014 but 2020 will see several developments completed.

Until now only two townhomes developments have gone on the market in the Town Center; one built in 2013 and one built in 2014. The sizes range from 1,480 to 2,220 square feet and average 1,730 square feet.

The 234th Street townhomes are located in the north side of 234th St SW between 56th Ave W and 55th Ave W. The *234th Street townhomes, built in 2013, originally sold for less the $300,000 ($126-$170/sf). Two of the seven homes have resold since for around $500,000 in 2017 and 2018 ($290/sf).

The 55th Ave W townhomes are located on the west side of 55th Ave W between 234th St SW and 236th St SW. The 55th Ave W (2014) townhomes original sales prices ranged from about $280,000 to $340,000 ($176-$224/sf). One has resold since in 2016 for $385,000 ($246/sf).

Townhomes sales price trends

All together this represents 21 townhome sales between 2013 and 2018. This is fairly limited data and a simplistic way of looking at it but we decided to plot it on a scatter plot to see what the trendline looks like. We elected to use the cost/sf as the Y-axis and the results are below.

The two clusters of sales data are when the two developments were originally sold. The three data points further to the right are the three townhomes that have resoldThe Puget Sound housing market has somewhat slowed in the past year but if we take this trendline and project to February 2020 we get a sales price of $367/sf. The first townhome listed for sale last week at the new 55th West development is listed for $327/sf.

Upcoming townhome projects

With the remaining 11 homes at 55th West going on sale soon, 19 homes at Solana(55th/240th) later this year, and 14 homes at Tamblyn (58th/230th) beginning construction we’ll have much more recent data to work with. In addition to those three developments (45 homes) there are about 140 more townhomes in some phase of planning in the greater Town Center area. We’ll continue to update this graph as more data comes in.

Here are links to more information about each of the townhome projects that are either being built or in the works:

• 55th West Townhomes – 12 homes on the west side of 55th Ave W between 234th St SW and 236th St SW
• Solana Townhomes – 19 homes on the NW corner of 55th Ave W and 240th St sW
• Tamblyn Townhomes – 14 homes at the SW corner of 58th Ave W and 230th St SW
• Antares Townhomes – 19 homes at the SW corner of 55th Ave W and 238th St SW
• Willow/Oak Glenn – 42 homes on the east side of 55th Ave W between 238th St SW and 240th St SW
• PNT Townhomes – 16 home on the west side of 56th Ave W just north of 230th St SW
• Cedar Park Townhomes – 52 homes on the west side of 54th Ave W between 236th St SW and 240th St SW
• Gustavson Townhomes – 6 homes at the SW corner of 56th Ave W and 238th St SW
• 234th Townhomes (separate project from the one built in 2013) – 6 homes at the SE corner of 55th Ave W and 234th St SW

*The 234th Street Townhomes have an additional home that is a live/work unit. Maida Hair Salon is currently on the ground floor with a residence above. Because this is a unique configuration to the neighborhood we elected to remove it from our analyses.