Looking back, it was "the tour" that lured house-hunters Tom Ahearn, his wife, Nancy Stillger, and their daughter, Veronica, far afield to West Seattle.

The North Seattle residents (their Roosevelt-area house a welcoming Craftsman) had never considered it. But they sure needed more room, wanted a view plus a bigger yard, and found themselves a few dollars short of getting that in the North End.

Then they met Kurt Metzger and took him up on his tour offer.

Climbing behind the wheel of his Jaguar, the Windermere real-estate agent expertly navigated his West Seattle neighborhoods, showing them a beach here, a spacious park there, killer views everywhere. Traffic was light, traffic lights are few and the homes he passed have curb appeal galore.

"We didn't know much about West Seattle," Stillger recalls. "But by the end of the tour we were sold. It did have a sense of community, and it had things like restaurants and a good grocery that we had in our old neighborhood."

In only a few visits last summer, they found their new home, an updated 1950s rambler on the hill above Alki Beach. "We got the light, the space, the view and we didn't have to peel off layers of wallpaper," she says happily. Plus, new neighbors welcomed them with fresh coffeecake, and five orcas welcomed them with a swim-by.

"Whenever I can, I try to drag people over here because when they see it, they'll want West Seattle," says Metzger, who estimates that 90 percent of the home-seekers who get his tour settle on this area.

One reason is the diversity of neighborhoods and homes.

First-time buyers in search of a modest, small house under $200,000 can find it there. Folks who want older charm for $300,000 can find it there. House-hunters who want prime saltwater frontage for $1 million or more can find it in West Seattle.

"I tell them things over here are appreciating, and you're not going to lose money," Metzger says.

Appreciation trends

That's true and then some. A Seattle Times computer analysis of King County single-family home-sales data from the Assessor's Office reveals that in an uneven real-estate market, where recent appreciation is all over the map, West Seattle is a winner.

Last year, appreciation in all but one of its neighborhoods bested the county average of 5.1 percent, and West Seattle's south-central area posted a near-chart-topping 14.8 percent appreciation. That harkens back to the late 1990s boom years, before the economy began cooling.

Other appreciation winners were the many neighborhoods where middle-class salaries cover home prices, albeit with the aid of record low mortgage-interest rates that have propelled many first-timers into the market. More and more, these areas of affordability are in the county's southern cities.

Conversely, those communities suffering sluggish sales or stagnant prices tend to be upper-end locales, such as Medina, that have been badly battered by the stock market's decline. Its earlier gains helped move many buyers into luxury properties.

The Times analysis calculates single-family home appreciation on a per-square-foot basis, which is a more accurate way to gauge appreciation than simple sales prices.

Here are other highlights of the analysis of 86 King County areas whose borders are defined by the assessor. (Because of so few sales, rural East King County was omitted from the analysis.)

• Over the past two years, nine communities have seen have seen square-foot prices drop. West Bellevue/Medina is the leader at — 6.4 percent. But nine is actually an improvement from 2000-01, when 13 areas suffered a drop.

• The more expensive the house, the less it has appreciated in the past three years. This is in contrast to the previous three years (1996-99), when average annual appreciation was close to the same for homes in all price ranges.

• On a five-year basis, which includes the late 1990 boom years, all areas experienced rising prices. The big winners here were Madison Park, Wallingford and West Seattle's Fauntleroy, which all posted 11 percent or better price rises per square foot. Many North Seattle neighborhoods came near this percentage, but few on the Eastside or south of Seattle did.

• In the last year, average appreciation countywide was 5.1 percent — up from the previous year's 4.3 percent.

• The least expensive neighborhoods per square foot last year were all south of downtown Seattle and include Kent, Renton, Auburn, the Green River Valley and Des Moines. The absolute most affordable were the Twin Lakes and Jovita/Algona/Pacific areas, where houses sold last year for a median $117 a square foot.

• By contrast, buyers were looking at $342 a square foot in Madison Park and $294 in the North Capitol Hill and Montlake neighborhoods.

• Lots of South End areas, including Auburn and Fairwood, never saw the big late '90s appreciation that North Seattle and the Eastside enjoyed, when demand in those locales outstripped supply, and tech money propelled prices ever higher. But now those same South King County towns are not seeing their appreciation rates fall, either. Joe Bauman, owner of John L. Scott's Auburn office, says that's because South End areas have "always been where our median price is more affordable to more people and the inventory has been consistent. There's been enough housing."

• Frequently the homes that were the most expensive per square foot didn't command the highest sales price — which in effect makes them seem less expensive than they really are. For example, Wallingford homes sold last year for a median $359,500 — some $235,000 cheaper than Mercer Island houses. But on a square-foot basis, Wallingford houses are 6 percent more expensive than those on Mercer Island. Their sought-after in-city location and smaller size are two reasons for this.

Unique factors affect prices

Since the entire county has been affected by some of the same basic dynamics, particularly mortgage-interest rates, the recession and job layoffs, it would seem that housing appreciation would be more uniform.

But as appraiser Alan Pope pointed out in a recent market analysis, "values at the lowest end of the range remain upbeat due to affordable interest rates. However, as property values in any specific neighborhood rise above what can be termed the mid-portion of the value range for the community, they are generally experiencing flat conditions, and in some instances, a decline in home values."

This is why Michael Smith, owner of Bellevue's Prudential Michael Smith Realtors, can say with certainty that sales of Eastside houses priced under $400,000 — which is considered "entry level" there — remain "extremely strong; multiple offers are still occurring."

However, in areas like Enumclaw, $400,000 homes are such an upper-end rarity that less than five sold last year. Most sales in Enumclaw proper (excluding the Plateau) were under $250,000, and many were under $175,000.

Moreover, as Prudential Signature Properties' Gary O'Leyar points out, King County is really composed of mini real-estate markets influenced by their own unique factors. These can include local job availability and the traffic situation.

Take Shoreline and the Phinney Ridge/Fremont neighborhoods, for example. They posted above-average appreciation based in part on "notable differences," O'Leyar says. "Fremont is just a total renaissance story," as new residences and stores attract more people to its quirky charm.

As for Shoreline, "it enjoyed lower average prices than Seattle, so that kept it in the affordability zone," O'Leyar says, adding that voter support of schools helped, too. Likewise, West Seattle has been helped by the $50 million renovation of West Seattle High.

Mortgage rates are key

Above all, low mortgage rates have played a key role in making houses affordable, particularly to first-time buyers. Between 1999 and 2002, they dropped 12 percent, continuing to decline even further to last week's 5.84 percent. That is a national rate for a 30-year loan.

"What that suggests to me is because of the continued drop in the mortgage rate, the low end of the market was relatively strong in 1999-02, and that's why your appreciation rates are higher at the low end of the market," says Seattle economist Dick Conway, an inventor of the Windermere Index, which charts local real-estate economic trends.

If rates rise before our sluggish economy revives, that could drive home appreciation down, Conway theorizes. But if they go lower, homes will become even better investments.

Elizabeth Rhodes: erhodes@seattletimes.com. Justin Mayo: jmayo@seattletimes.com