As you may know, I like to keep an eye on the motivated sellers on Capitol Hill, as a kind of market barometer. Here’s a special case, likely due to financing.

This one bedroom is on the second floor of a 1924 brick co-op near Seattle University, 1136 13th Ave. Redfin says it’s been listed for over a year; Windermere has it selling originally for $175,000, now for $149,000.

It’s 600 square feet, with a redone kitchen: granite countertop, slate floor. It comes with a stacked washer/dryer combo, and the HOA dues of $312 include earthquake insurance (because brick, see). It faces south, which is terrific, and there’s a large walk-in closet. Downside, baseboard heat, not FHA-approved. I imagine that last is a sticking point for bargain shoppers.

With a 20-percent down payment, your mortgage and HOA could still be under $1,000 per month. And, you have to like the location. At 13th & Union, you’re blocks away from everywhere you want to be (i.e., Café Presse and Stumptown, Piecora’s, the Pike/Pine corridor, Pony…really, anything fun that begins with “P”). Assuming it doesn’t fall down around your ears in the Big One, you’re in a good spot.

Or, as TSB Flickr pool star :MPG:, who snapped this shot of the CakeBoss working at the CakeSpy Shop, put it: “At least one of them was.”

We’re only one episode into Season 4 of Mad Men, and already I can’t wait to see where things are headed. Like, how will the Surgeon General’s 1964 report on the dangers of smoking (and the subsequent required warning on cigarette packs) affect the fledgling ad firm’s biggest client, Lucky Strikes? Will we ever see our old pals Kinsey and Cosgrove again? And wherefore art thou, Joan’s terrible husband and Roger’s terrible wife?

And what better way to kick off the new season than with Natasha Vargas-Cooper’s new book?  Born of her recurring series on The Awl, Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America is a look at the show via mini-essays that make pointed, witty observations on the cultural context of the early ’60s. So you can quickly read all about what Betty’s suburban decor says about her and her family, how the writers of the time–John Cheever, Helen Gurley Brown, Mary McCarthy, Frank O’Hara–inform the series, and why the character of Don Draper is the careful combination of traits found in Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne.  That’s a near-deadly admixture of sex appeal.

To celebrate the return of Mad Men, The SunBreak has three copies of Mad Men Unbuttoned to give away. Enter below for your chance to win a copy. We’ll be drawing three winners’ names Friday at noon.