I typically ride Metro’s route 65 along 35th Avenue Northeast through both Wedgwood and a very small part of the View Ridge neighborhoods on my way home after work.  I’ve decided that between Northeast 45th (which runs past the University of Washington) and Northeast 110th is a very nice area with fairly nice houses (chances that any of those are rentals seems rather low).  Smaller houses, but that’s typical for Seattle.  The drawback being that that corridor is only served by routes 64 and 65, though some cross streets are served by other routes (not many of them, from what I can tell).