Home of the Snarkmaiden

But that's near a Tube stop.

Yes, I do understand it could be so much worse. My friends in the Bay Area are no doubt chuckling merrily over my picayune dilemma, ditto those in or near Manhattan." Or even Los Angeles. People commute for insane distances in all those places. Literal hundreds of miles in some cases.

But the fact remains that this is not London, or Manhattan, nor LA, nor San Francisco, and it still seems wrong to have to move into the next county to buy a house you actually want. And metro Puget Sound is still wrestling with its public transit growing pangs in ways that make "long" commutes less viable here than they might be in other places.

More than anything, though, it's that the local folks tend to think that a 30 minute drive is Very Far, and so if we were to move to Everett it would be even dodgier to expect to see our friends much.

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I'll go the other way.

Yeah, people make fun of Pittsburgh. But we like it. When we spent $272,000 on a new house a year ago, we got:

3200 sq. ft. plus finished basement and two car garage
4 bedrooms (plus second floor loft)
finished basement (game room with kitchenette and another spare room)
big kitchen with island
5.5 baths
2 car garage
1/3rd of an acre of land, relatively private back yard
about 1/2 hour outside of Pittsburgh (at any time other than rush hour)

We've put about $13,000 into the house, mostly for a deck, but also for a ceiling fan in the master bedroom, getting some rooms repainted, a refrigerator for the downstairs kitchen and two storm doors.

http://www.dpsinfo.com/newhouse/ New House
http://216.92.255.170/blog/2007/04/deck-is-done-41007.html
New Deck

So much as we love to visit Boston, New York, Seattle and London, we like having a house that we can afford. We expect to have the house paid off in less than ten years, just about the time we hope Jim will be able to retire.

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With rare exceptions, I dislike new construction. I also don't want to live in a monoculture car-commuter suburb ever again if I can possibly help it. And being 1/2 hour outside of Seattle at off-peak times is precisely what I'm complaining about -- we really want to spend less time in our car(s), not more. So I don't think your choices would work for us. In fact, looking at the pictures, I find your old house much more the sort of thing I would look for than the new. Chacun a son gout and all that.

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Jim works from home - most of his group is in California anyway.

I work contracts and free lance. I don't mind some amount of commuting, but am working to avoid it. I have a job interview in a few days where I'd have one ugly commute about one day a week and can work from home the rest of the time.

We lived for 13 years in a small house in a close-in suburb on a busy street. We couldn't take it anymore and just needed the space and the quiet.

The main thing Jim misses is walking for Yuppie-coffee---we do have to join the car culture to go anywhere.

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My own feeling is that if I were going to move out of the city, I would much rather move into the full-on country or a small town, not a platted out development. I just don't care for them, and find them wasteful in so many ways. At least if we move to Everett we'll be remaining within an urban core, with the transit that implies.

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mjlayman.livejournal.com

You have lots of snow, though!

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Not at all. Pittsburgh is south of the Great Lakes snowbelt. We had two storms that gave us about six inches of snow, and another few inches here and there. And that's nothing, compared to Buffalo or Cleveland or even southern New England. Winter didn't even start here until the second week in January (though it's been dammned reluctant to leave!)

The last time we got more than a foot of snow from one storm was in January of 1994.

In the summer, it rarely gets above 90, either. Southwestern Pennsylvania is very temperate. My relatives in Massachusetts had a day or two over 100 last summer.

One thing I don't like about this house - I don't like houses/condos with cathedral ceilings. The master bedroom has one and it's the coldest room in the house. We got a space heater, but I think we're going to invest in an additional wall heater with a thermostat for that room.

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kalimac.livejournal.com

A friend drove me through a district of large and well-kept houses in Pittsburgh. (Does "Squirrel Hill" sound right? I think it was around there somewhere.) He said with awe, "Some of these houses cost half a million dollars!"

I sighed.

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Yes - Squirrel Hill and Shadyside have some gorgeous houses, and many of the nicer ones are in the $300 - $400,000 range.

Of course, there are some million dollar plus homes in those areas too, but they are quite rare compared to other places in the northeast.

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randy-byers.livejournal.com

Is the driving time to/from Everett longer than to/from Redmond? That house looks pretty cool. The other thing to consider about Everett is that there's a Sounder commuter train, although I don't know how useful it would be to someone going to the U District. It probably only stops downtown.

Real estate in Seattle is definitely a nightmare for new buyers. As someone who got in before prices really went through the roof, I of course have benefited from this. It will be interesting to see if building a bunch of condo towers downtown does anything to house prices. Also, I've heard that the bubble implosion hasn't really hit Seattle yet, so it could be that in six months things will look a little different. But maybe not enough different.

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I haven't every done the drive from Everett to Seattle at rush hour, but since the old part of Everett is almost 30 miles away, and Redmond is more like 15, and the traffic is at least comparable if not worse on the Everett commute, I would certainly guess the drive time would be longer. I'm really not even thinking about driving all the way. Most likely I would either drive to a South Everett Park-&-Ride, or else take a mixture of busses, or possibly investigate vanpool options.

That particular house is already 'subject-to-inspection' -- meaning that it's got an offer on it and is probably already in escrow, but it does give an idea of what sort of thing one can find in North Everett. The whole neighborhood is full of similar, older houses.

I'm not sure there really is a significant bubble in Seattle. My boss's husband is a realtor, and he doesn't seem to think there's any sign of a slow down. Maybe all that condo stock will help, but right now Seattle is a significant seller's market, so it's going to take a large influx of housing to get in parity with demand, unless the local job market just tanks.

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randy-byers.livejournal.com

It's hard to understand what's driving the housing prices, since the economy isn't that hot -- is it? Maybe it's just that people in the outlying areas want to move into the city, I dunno. I guess Boeing is doing good business again, so maybe that's driving it now.

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I dunno if the economy is that hot or not, but Seattle has so much natural curb appeal (as it were) that I think people want to try and live here if they possibly can. But as far as I know, all the local major employers are going gangbusters, and MSoft is expanding. Gotta put all them MSofties somewhere. Downtown Belleview has something like 8-10 cranes up right now.

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randy-byers.livejournal.com

Well, and then it occurred to me that housing prices kept going up even during the last recession, when unemployment in Seattle was worse than the national average. But I guess that was one reason people thought it might be an investment-driven bubble.

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hal-obrien.livejournal.com

"Is the driving time to/from Everett longer than to/from Redmond?"

I was doing some comparative distances today. Right now, it's 17 driving miles from our place to my job at the 3-way intersection Western/Denny/Queen Anne. One place we were looking at in Everett is 30 miles from here. A few of the places we've been mulling over in West Seattle or South Seattle/Columbia City/Rainier Beach are on the order of 9 miles.

But I scroll down and see Ulrika has already noted similar findings.

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mjlayman.livejournal.com

Sounder cars pass two blocks from my condo every day. They were loaned to us to start with and now VRE wants to paint them blue, silver, and red like all the other commuter rail cars. I like the Sounder colors.

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I like the Everett house a lot. But totally understand the mentality (I read through your comments first) of the locals thinking 30 miles is Very Far. There's that same mentality here in Boston. "What? Drive into the city on a weeknight? Are you mad?" Heck, I've gone down to Providence on a week night for good food. But when you grew up in L.A. driving an hour somewhere doesn't seem all that far at all, so I don't get why it's such a big deal.

Are you sure that owning is something that makes sense for you and Hal? Owning isn't always the answer.

As for vinyl siding and old construction....our house was built in 1880. Someone along the way put up vinyl siding. I've had to get used to it.... We do have a picture from about 1920 and the house used to have these adorable shutters. That's on the to do list, put them back on.

I too have an aversion to cookie cutter homes. On the other hand, maybe something like that could be a "starter" home for you guys and in five years you could have enough equity to sell and buy something bigger or in an area you like.

ALSO, if you've never bought a home or haven't owned in the past three years you qualify for a first time home owners loan. Check into it. It worked for us brilliantly.

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We lived out in Worcester county (Westboro then Northboro) the last eight years we were in Massachusetts. We probably drove to Somerville at least twice a month during that time, because we were both active in NESFA and MCFI.

By contrast, I grew up about another ten miles further west of that area. If my parents took us to Boston once a year, it was a lot...

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We haven't decided that buying is the way to go. Still, as long as we're going to have a dog there will be a real limit to our choices on rentals. Especially once you factor in breed bigotry, and size restrictions. And in terms of long term investments, real estate seems like a pretty solid choice. It's not like we're expecting to leave the Puget Sound area any time soon, if ever.

In the cookie cutter mode, we will probably continue to keep an eye on townhouses, because that's where the price break and location will likely be advantageous. The single family new construction is all either too far out, too expensive, or both. I mean, I would *love*love*love* to be able to buy into a Cottage Company development, but their current stock *starts* in the low 700s. And if I wanted to live out in North Bend or Renton, I'd rather buy something older, anyway.

Yep, already onto that first time homebuyer's loan. It'll certainly be among the options we consider when-and-if.

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Okay, that Cottage Company development is intriguing. low 700s. Holy shit. They're cute tho, and I like the community concept.

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Yep, the Cottage Company has some very good ideas, and they implement them in very attractive ways. But I can't quite wrap my head around paying 3/4 of a million dollars for one, even if I were in the relevant bracket.

Perhaps I should play the Lotto.

In the meantime, you may be amused to know that we're probably going to give at least a semi-serious look at some stuff down in Kent. We were certainly thinking of you when we were tooling around Tukwila.

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Aww, it's always nice to know I'm thought of on occasion. :-)

You're looking down in Kent? Wow. That seems like a suck ass commute for both of you or has public transportation improved since I left?

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I don't remember knowing what the transit options were back when you were in Kent, but these days there's a big old Sounder train stop in the old downtown that runs up to Seattle in 30 minutes, and supposedly there's an express bus to the U District that takes about 45 minutes -- which, really, is no worse off than I am now, and probably slightly better. Certainly for a straight car commute Kent is closer than Everett, so I don't imagine it's any suckier.

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Sounder train didn't exist when I left (just an idea). Well, shoot, having an hour and 10 minute or so one way commute on the train/T myself, 45 minutes doesn't seem too bad to me and if that's no worse off than you are now....Kent's a nice location.

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Yes, we just went down last night to look at some of our possibles. I like the feel of Kent, especially that central bit. There's a bit of development that's all new since you were there -- the Regional Justice Center is in Kent -- big ol' courthouse complex -- and they just got done putting in a fairly upscale, and nicely done, mall, eponymously called Kent Station, right by the Sounder station. Kent also has what looks to be a really big regional library, and it looks like a good candidate for getting us some bikes and biking around town.

And as Hal points out, once the light rail comes through to Tukwila, there will be another fairly close commuter transit option. So, I dunno, but it all looks pretty promising to me.

Oh, and on our way home we decided to have dinner at The Keg. It's gotten more upscale than I remember -- I don't remember them doing a tempura pea pods and asparagus appetizer before -- but the food and the service were all pretty excellent, if pricy. You may, or may not, recall that the last time Hal & I were at the Keg was with you and a bunch of your FAA pals, in years of yore.

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Here's the listing for the house in Kent. We haven't had a tour, yet, but for once the place looks as good in person as it looks in pictures -- in fact, in some ways it looks better...

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avram

I don't know much about Seattle geography. How's Bothell? Someone else on my Friends list mentioned a couple of houses that she thinks are going for 30k each.

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avram

Erm, 300K.

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