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prosodicHer question:
...when you were house hunting, how did you decide on your neighborhood? and what made you decide to buy vs rent? I'd be interested in a post on that! I don't mean to be nosy, but we're concerned about the housing market (wherever we end up next year) and I'm curious about how others are deciding.
First of all, it's okay to be nosy! You're not asking for anything particularly specific here in regards to finances and stuff. If this information helps you, I've done my good deed for today. ;)
The Seattle area is one of the few in the US that has been relatively unaffected by the housing market crisis. I can't really explain why...Lance knows more about it than I do...but it's pretty much irrelevent to what you're asking anyway. But regardless of whether it was a good or bad market in the area, it's pretty much a buyer's market everywhere, so there was no question that we were going to buy. And property values continue to increase at a steady and impressive pace in the area, which is another thing we had going for us (while sellers make out well in the Seattle area, usually, it generally takes longer for them to sell their homes...although our house was only listed for a week before we snapped it up).
Basically, we both have almost the highest FICO score that you are capable of having (although mine is just slightly higher than his, and I always tease him for it). Our credit is flawless. We have been doing well in our investments. Lance has been saving and saving to where he has the downpayment amount needed for the house. We planned all along to buy, because we believe in paying ourselves instead of a landlord. The equity we put in the house will matter a lot when we turn around and sell it, and we can make a nice, tidy profit off the house several years down the road (this is why it matters that property appreciation percentages in the Seattle area continue to remain steady). Besides, we're both sick of renting. We've been doing it since college and we want to have a place where we can decide how to paint, how to do the yard, etc. We want a place that's ours.
And we picked a good time to buy. If we had waited one or two years, the houses in our price range would be in considerably poorer shape. You can, quite literally, pay $200,000 for a delapidated shack out in the wilderness (we know...we've seen enough of them in the real estate listings). That same shack, a few years from now, would sell for $250,000, without any improvements even being done to it. This is how the market is doing in Seattle. Our house, if we sold it 5 years from now in the exact shape it's in right now, would be appraised at $100,000 more than what we paid for it if house appreciations continue at the same pace they are now. But because we'll be painting it and fixing it up (new countertops, flooring, etc. etc.), we should get even more than that. So had we waited to buy, we would've ended up getting a poorer quality house for the same amount that we paid for the one we did get (which was the nicest house, by a long shot, that we had seen in our price range, so we made out like bandits).
Am I confusing you yet? I'm finding that I have a very sharp learning curve on all this real estate stuff, but Lance and our agent broke it down for me this way.
As far as why we chose the neighborhood...Lance will be working at the Boeing campus in Kent, so we wanted to be somewhere near there. Traffic in Seattle is obscene, so we wanted to avoid the major freeways as much as possible (we experienced rush hour on the I-5 a few times...also known as the world's largest parking lot). Kent has two hills - East Hill (where our house is located) and West Hill - with the downtown area sitting in the valley between them. Lance figured that if something crazy happened, like Mt. Rainier blowing (which isn't all that far-fetched...it's been 150 years since its last eruption), the valley would be wiped out, but we would probably be safe on the hill. That's his theory anyway. We weren't specifically looking in East Hill when we started, but Lance thinks it's a bonus to living there.
Also, Kent has a commuter rail station, so if I have to work in Seattle, I can just drive to the station every morning and take the train into downtown. So that's something else we considered while shopping around for a house. Kent is also undergoing revitilization right now...it wasn't as nice a few years ago as it is now, and it's going to get even better. So house values will go up because of that, and our house is already in a good neighborhood surrounded by two pricier neighborhoods, which drives up the value of our house some more. :)
Kent was our primary area of focus, but we also looked at other towns within a few miles of Kent that would still allow for an easy commute for Lance (and some still had commuter rail for me, if I needed it). But when weighing our options - and there were really only two houses we had to consider - the house in Kent made much more sense. There is more stuff around there (shopping, restaurants, etc.), it is quieter and in a nicer and more private neighborhood, and closer to Lance's job.
Things certainly are very confusing when you start looking at houses, but doing a lot of preparation and research ahead of time makes it easier. Lance spent MONTHS studying the real estate industry and the markets, and came armed with as much knowledge as possible...our agent was very impressed because he said that most people show up not knowing anything, and say, "Show me some houses." Before our plane even touched down in SeaTac, we had 40+ houses saved on our list to go see, preapproval for a mortgage loan from USAA, and a very clear idea of what we were looking for. So when we found what we wanted, which was the 3rd house we saw, we just knew it was right. ;) Most people don't find what they want as quickly as we did, but we wouldn't have found the house so quickly if we hadn't planned ahead.
Hope this helps, and sorry if it's a bit long-winded, but it's not something that can really be explained quickly. ;)
...when you were house hunting, how did you decide on your neighborhood? and what made you decide to buy vs rent? I'd be interested in a post on that! I don't mean to be nosy, but we're concerned about the housing market (wherever we end up next year) and I'm curious about how others are deciding.
First of all, it's okay to be nosy! You're not asking for anything particularly specific here in regards to finances and stuff. If this information helps you, I've done my good deed for today. ;)
The Seattle area is one of the few in the US that has been relatively unaffected by the housing market crisis. I can't really explain why...Lance knows more about it than I do...but it's pretty much irrelevent to what you're asking anyway. But regardless of whether it was a good or bad market in the area, it's pretty much a buyer's market everywhere, so there was no question that we were going to buy. And property values continue to increase at a steady and impressive pace in the area, which is another thing we had going for us (while sellers make out well in the Seattle area, usually, it generally takes longer for them to sell their homes...although our house was only listed for a week before we snapped it up).
Basically, we both have almost the highest FICO score that you are capable of having (although mine is just slightly higher than his, and I always tease him for it). Our credit is flawless. We have been doing well in our investments. Lance has been saving and saving to where he has the downpayment amount needed for the house. We planned all along to buy, because we believe in paying ourselves instead of a landlord. The equity we put in the house will matter a lot when we turn around and sell it, and we can make a nice, tidy profit off the house several years down the road (this is why it matters that property appreciation percentages in the Seattle area continue to remain steady). Besides, we're both sick of renting. We've been doing it since college and we want to have a place where we can decide how to paint, how to do the yard, etc. We want a place that's ours.
And we picked a good time to buy. If we had waited one or two years, the houses in our price range would be in considerably poorer shape. You can, quite literally, pay $200,000 for a delapidated shack out in the wilderness (we know...we've seen enough of them in the real estate listings). That same shack, a few years from now, would sell for $250,000, without any improvements even being done to it. This is how the market is doing in Seattle. Our house, if we sold it 5 years from now in the exact shape it's in right now, would be appraised at $100,000 more than what we paid for it if house appreciations continue at the same pace they are now. But because we'll be painting it and fixing it up (new countertops, flooring, etc. etc.), we should get even more than that. So had we waited to buy, we would've ended up getting a poorer quality house for the same amount that we paid for the one we did get (which was the nicest house, by a long shot, that we had seen in our price range, so we made out like bandits).
Am I confusing you yet? I'm finding that I have a very sharp learning curve on all this real estate stuff, but Lance and our agent broke it down for me this way.
As far as why we chose the neighborhood...Lance will be working at the Boeing campus in Kent, so we wanted to be somewhere near there. Traffic in Seattle is obscene, so we wanted to avoid the major freeways as much as possible (we experienced rush hour on the I-5 a few times...also known as the world's largest parking lot). Kent has two hills - East Hill (where our house is located) and West Hill - with the downtown area sitting in the valley between them. Lance figured that if something crazy happened, like Mt. Rainier blowing (which isn't all that far-fetched...it's been 150 years since its last eruption), the valley would be wiped out, but we would probably be safe on the hill. That's his theory anyway. We weren't specifically looking in East Hill when we started, but Lance thinks it's a bonus to living there.
Also, Kent has a commuter rail station, so if I have to work in Seattle, I can just drive to the station every morning and take the train into downtown. So that's something else we considered while shopping around for a house. Kent is also undergoing revitilization right now...it wasn't as nice a few years ago as it is now, and it's going to get even better. So house values will go up because of that, and our house is already in a good neighborhood surrounded by two pricier neighborhoods, which drives up the value of our house some more. :)
Kent was our primary area of focus, but we also looked at other towns within a few miles of Kent that would still allow for an easy commute for Lance (and some still had commuter rail for me, if I needed it). But when weighing our options - and there were really only two houses we had to consider - the house in Kent made much more sense. There is more stuff around there (shopping, restaurants, etc.), it is quieter and in a nicer and more private neighborhood, and closer to Lance's job.
Things certainly are very confusing when you start looking at houses, but doing a lot of preparation and research ahead of time makes it easier. Lance spent MONTHS studying the real estate industry and the markets, and came armed with as much knowledge as possible...our agent was very impressed because he said that most people show up not knowing anything, and say, "Show me some houses." Before our plane even touched down in SeaTac, we had 40+ houses saved on our list to go see, preapproval for a mortgage loan from USAA, and a very clear idea of what we were looking for. So when we found what we wanted, which was the 3rd house we saw, we just knew it was right. ;) Most people don't find what they want as quickly as we did, but we wouldn't have found the house so quickly if we hadn't planned ahead.
Hope this helps, and sorry if it's a bit long-winded, but it's not something that can really be explained quickly. ;)
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 06:26 am (UTC)Any ideas where you might go?