By Mike Colias

After renting a spacious four-bedroom apartment on East Manning Street for the past five years, Robert Leaver and his wife Michelle Gonzalez began their house hunt last February with hopes of remaining on the East Side of Providence.

But with a price range starting at $200,000, they didn't get very far.

"As the reality of what we were finding for the price became more and more clear, we began to focus almost totally on Elmhurst," Leaver said.

The couple, who both work at Organizational Futures consulting firm in Providence, eventually found a two-story colonial in Elmhurst, on the northwest side of the city, for well below their $200,000 limit. Although Leaver prefers the homes on the East Side, he said Elmhurst has its own cozy feel.

"What I like about Elmhurst is that it's clean and spacious and there's more trees," Leaver said. "It feels more peaceful."

Elmhurst, with its neatly manicured lawns and diverse mix of ranches, bungalows, colonial and Cape style homes, so close to downtown, has long been a desirable family neighborhood.

But Realtors say that more and more young buyers have been drawn to the Elmhurst neighborhood and other "alternative" sections of town because the East Side - even just in the last year or two - has become out of reach for many young professionals.

"The East Side has just gotten too expensive for a lot of buyers," said Libby Isaacson, manager of the Residential Properties Ltd. office on Wickenden Street, which focuses on the East Side but markets residential properties all over the city.

Longtime North Providence real estate agent Jack Quirk has sold homes in the Elmhurst neighborhood for 30 years. He said the Elmhurst market is as hot as it's ever been, helping make 2001 Quirk's best year ever for home sales.

"It's unbelievable," said Quirk. "You have (three-bedroom) homes that sold for $120,000 a year ago that are now going for $170,000, and they're gone in a day a lot of times. Every time there's a listing for a decent colonial or cape in Elmhurst, the East Side Realtors are over here like vultures," Quirk said.

Quirk said he recently sold a home on Rankin Avenue, just west of River Avenue in Elmhurst, for $170,000. Within days, another house on the same street was listed for $250,000.

Homebuyers in Elmhurst include "a ton of young professionals," Quirk said, many of whom have been shut out of the red-hot East Side market.

The median price for single-family home sales on the East Side last year was $359,500 - up 22 percent from 2000, according to the Rhode Island Association of Realtors. The East Side's drum-tight housing stock has fostered bidding wars that often lead to sales at prices well above initial listings.

"Everybody wants to move to Providence and live on the East Side - until they see the prices," said Quirk, who also sells properties on the East Side. "You can pay $200,000 (in Elmhurst) for a house you would pay $500,000 for on the East Side."

In addition to Elmhurst, Quirk said young professionals are also looking for homes in sections of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood as well as Fruit Hill, which is just across the city line in North Providence, bordering Elmhurst to the northwest.

While buyers are finding more for their money in properties off the East Side, demand is booming in just about any neighborhood with a good mix of single-family homes.

Isaacson of Residential Properties said homes for sale in Elmhurst often get five offers the first day on the market. She added that buyers from Boston increasingly are seeking relative bargains in Providence, adding to already brisk demand and helping to boost prices.

Many sections of Providence are filled with multifamily housing, forcing buyers to scour small pockets of single-family homes in a number of neighborhoods that might have been overlooked a few years ago. Isaacson said competition among buyers in the $100,000-to-$300,000 market is cutthroat in a number of neighborhoods, including the Armory District and Federal Hill on the west side, Washington Park south of downtown and the Rumford and Riverside areas of East Providence.

"People have just broadened their thinking in terms of which neighborhoods they're looking at," Isaacson said.

Sharon Steele, president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, said she began pitching many of these off-East Side neighborhoods as options for first-time home buyers about six years ago, when prices on the East Side began taking off.

In addition to Elmhurst, Steele mentioned Rumford as a "wonderful alternative to the East Side," with quick access to the East Side and downtown Providence, good resale values, a "village atmosphere" and an diverse mix of bungalows, colonials and Victorian homes.

She added that recently announced plans by the city of East Providence to allow a developer to redevelop the former Washburn Wire Co. site - a blighted 28-acre property on the Seekonk River off Roger Williams Avenue - will "bring legitimacy to Rumford as a good residential alternative."

Other good options, Steele said: Riverside and the Oakhill neighborhood, just across the Providence line in Pawtucket.

What about buyers who still have their heart set on the East Side? Some Realtors say there are viable areas for single-family homes under $300,000 - but not many.

Judi Blau, manager of Spitz-Weiss Realtors at 785 Hope St., said the neighborhood around Miriam Hospital and other areas west of Hope tend to offer some value, as well as Oakhill in Pawtucket and some parts of the Fox Point neighborhood.

Published 7/22/2002