Home is where …  This story is part of a limited weekly series about homebuying in key places within the Seattle metro area.   Read previous story about Issaquah. Coming next: Lynnwood. Ballard, a blend of urban grittiness and family-friendly neighborhoods, has the attention of homebuyers again. Home sales have inched up in the neighborhood at a time when the Seattle-area housing market has been mostly stagnant. Yet, that doesn’t surprise folks who know Ballard well. “It’s a very nice, accessible, neighborly neighborhood,” said John Manning, managing broker of RE/MAX Gateway and a 25-year resident of Ballard. Like other towns and neighborhoods in the Seattle area, Ballard’s homebuying slowed in 2023 and 2024, but sales picked up last year and activity has accelerated this spring. There were 195 single-family home sales in the January-March period, including 91 sales in March, the most first-quarter sales and most in March since 2022, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.…