Are you an Amazon super fan or simply a Seattle area resident looking for a new home?
If so, you could buy the West Bellevue house where in 1994 Jeff Bezos lived and started Amazon. The price is $1.49 million, considered a relative bargain for the neighborhood.
Bezos rented the three-bedroom, one-and-three-quarter bathroom house built in 1954. The attached garage served as the original Amazon headquarters.
The 1,540-square-foot house is on the market for the first time in 10 years. The listing calls it “a slice of history,” and gives a future owner the opportunity to own “the birthplace of Amazon.”
An affordable, single-story slice of history it is. While West Bellevue is the most expensive neighborhood in the region, according to The Seattle Times, it is below the area’s median home price of about $2 million. The lower price may also reflect a softening regional real estate market, where the number of unsold homes has more than double from last year.
Nevertheless, the house’s value has climbed considerably in the years since Bezos lived there. The Seattle Times reports that while the house was valued at $135,000 in 1994, it was bought for $182,000 in 1998. In 2009, when the current owners purchased the house, they paid $620,000—less than half of its current asking price.
But prospective buyers be warned: the house will not look identical to how it did when Bezos made it his residence. In 2001, the house was reportedly “extensively remodeled,” including installing a new roof and bathroom—and the garage was remodeled too. However, it does have the signature oversized mailbox Bezos installed.