Location, Location, Location
Apr. 16th, 2007 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluIn Seattle, $300,000 will now buy you:
(a) A 450 sq. ft. 1bd condo courtyard bungalow on First Hill
(b) A 840 sq. ft. 2bd Craftsman in the Rainier Valley
(c) A 900(?) sq. ft. 3bd townhouse in Lake City
(d) None of the above
Yah-huh, that would be (d).
No, in Seattle $300,000 appears to buy (maybe) either a fixer next to the freeway or a fixer directly under the flight path of Sea-Tac international. Or possibly a fixer with a view of Boeing field, but that one seemed a lot like the contractors were falling all over each other to see who could put a total of 3 new townhouses on the "oversize" lot.
In Everett, the same $300,000 will buy you 1500 sq. ft. of turn of the century Builder's Cottage in a cool, mostly well-maintained old neighborhood, with a view of the Sound.
So I'm now pondering whether I could endure a 30 mile commute and the death of social life as I know it. It's probably that or going condo, which I would mind less if the condo options looked better.
In other news, we saw a pair of bald eagles on Saturday, the mature bird trailed by a full-grown juvenile. Same day also spotted a nesting flicker, and a nesting osprey. Also a pair of nesting Canada geese harrassing a pedestrian. And the turtles have started coming out on Lake Washington.
Also, I am developing a deep and abiding hatred of vinyl siding.
(a) A 450 sq. ft. 1bd condo courtyard bungalow on First Hill
(b) A 840 sq. ft. 2bd Craftsman in the Rainier Valley
(c) A 900(?) sq. ft. 3bd townhouse in Lake City
(d) None of the above
Yah-huh, that would be (d).
No, in Seattle $300,000 appears to buy (maybe) either a fixer next to the freeway or a fixer directly under the flight path of Sea-Tac international. Or possibly a fixer with a view of Boeing field, but that one seemed a lot like the contractors were falling all over each other to see who could put a total of 3 new townhouses on the "oversize" lot.
In Everett, the same $300,000 will buy you 1500 sq. ft. of turn of the century Builder's Cottage in a cool, mostly well-maintained old neighborhood, with a view of the Sound.
So I'm now pondering whether I could endure a 30 mile commute and the death of social life as I know it. It's probably that or going condo, which I would mind less if the condo options looked better.
In other news, we saw a pair of bald eagles on Saturday, the mature bird trailed by a full-grown juvenile. Same day also spotted a nesting flicker, and a nesting osprey. Also a pair of nesting Canada geese harrassing a pedestrian. And the turtles have started coming out on Lake Washington.
Also, I am developing a deep and abiding hatred of vinyl siding.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 07:17 pm (UTC)http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-13510702.rsp
no subject
Date: 2007-04-16 07:36 pm (UTC)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.