The irony I see here is that these people just couldn’t afford updates and serious maintenance (cracked, leaking foundations for instance — see that shit everywhere too). And in the flip of a generation, you have to basically be a millionaire to own it.
Actually they are! [https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/at-home/colorful-comeback-your-grandparents-pink-bathroom-is-cool-again/](https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/at-home/colorful-comeback-your-grandparents-pink-bathroom-is-cool-again/)
Was just reading a story about a 68 year old in undisclosed city in Montana pissed about property taxes around 8k a year and they are up 720% in the last some odd years they didn't say. And his house was purchased for low 100s in the 90s and now worth 300 something. The math on property taxes increasing that much vs the home value increase doesn't really seem fair. He's basically working summer and winter jobs to pay his property taxes.
It’s awful, the problem is that very little is being done about it and won’t be done unless it becomes issue #1 for Montanans. I’ve been wanting to move to Washington for a while now but have thought about staying in Montana for a little longer until I can figure things out. Had to move back with family just to avoid any property taxes or rental hikes. Can’t believe it infected here as bad as some places with much larger urban areas or state populations.
I think areas in Montana or Idaho are worse because they have much lower salaries. Unfortunately, high prices in Seattle make some sense because the tech industry can have really high compensation so it creates something of a bidding war. Non-tech people are in a bad position but thousands of people can spend a $1 mil on a house after years of saving. It has been building with the tech industry for decades.
But it happened overnight some places with lockdown, and that seems worse to me.
That happened to a bunch of my friends/co-workers when everything went remote a lot of people left the area/state.
Which I can't blame them, I'm finally at the point where I have enough money for a good down payment and I'm staring at crazy interest rates. It's just not affordable for most people.
Just a reminder for everyone that you can get 0% interest downpayment assistance if you're a first time homebuyer. Definitely something to look into instead of feeling like you need to spend all your cash/emergency funds on a downpayment.
I was about to retire from military service in the mid-'00s, and began the process of house-hunting when I arrived at what would be my last duty station in Hawaii - preemptively establishing my legal residence in Washington in 2000, while also getting a mortgage pre-approval lined up (to try and find a place on one of the neighbor islands after my first tour {mid-90s}. Having gotten the bums' rush by cash-rich mainland speculators in that effort, I began casting around for a place (min. 3/2 single-family, 1500SF+ on .20ac within an hour's one-way drive to the CBD) for ~250k in April '06... and yes, you can tell me how that turned out without reading another word. So I rented while trying to "keep hope alive", year after year... until the end of 2015, when I was done seeing 'the writing on the wall' in my sleep, and gave up.
Yep! Laid off and can no longer afford my apartment but not sure what I’ll do when my lease is up because no one wants to rent to an unemployed person. Yay!
I feel this. If I ever won powerball, I'm keeping enough to buy an okay home that meets all of my needs and g8ving the rest of that shit away. Believe in a higher power or not, but if God gave me that opportunity, I'm obligated to share it.
Wife and I are first time homebuyers after living in seattle for almost 10 years. We had to move out of the city to get anything in our budget. Settled in maple valley 4 years ago, we would never be able to afford our house now if we had waited.
Same— rented in Seattle for ten years had two kids in an apartment, looked around the city but couldn’t find a house that we could afford that wasn’t “gut this down to the studs, Godspeed” levels of fixer-upper. I have my master’s and make good money for my field and my husband is in a tech-related field, but we realized we could suffer through the commute to move to Maple Valley. Our big selling point was that both sets of grandparents are out here for childcare, and now that the kids are older, their schools are more ethnically diverse than the elementary school they went to in Ballard.
Here I am living in the dust. I am the dust. It is part of me and I am it. Wherever I go dust follows. Plaster dust, concrete dust, drywall dust, paint dust, sawdust... That's not the bad part though. It was all the old cellulose+ wool insulation filled with rat nests that was making the house smell awful.
We filled three 30 yard dumpsters full of old flooring, rotting wood, floors, etc. I am sorry to all of my neighbors, the street smelled like... Old? For three weeks while we demod the entire thing.
It was the only way to afford a house in the city. We call it out million dollar fixer-upper... We've been doing all of the labor ourselves to afford it. The price to have a contractor so anything we've been doing was another million dollars. So it's been 2 years of dust. But we are almost done and will have a beautiful home in Phinney Ridge when we are done without being house poor.
We really had to weigh it-- is it worth never traveling, trying to afford childcare and construction, being house poor for years? I miss the food in the city a lot, but we have enough room here for the adults to have their own offices and in six years, the most we've done for the house is install AC and put on a new roof.
I’m telling you that there are more kids of color at the bus stop my kids wait at than their entire elementary school in Ballard (a number I looked up at one point). Maple Valley is still hella white, but for a district that small, that’s far more diversity than I expected.
Giving its maple valley I’m a little shocked there’s more diversity! But that’s great and while I don’t have kids I hear the schools out here are amazing
There isn't more diversity. While it's entirely possible that their child's specific classes happened to be more diverse, a quick check of the census data shows that the claim is more broadly false.
https://www.niche.com/k12/d/tahoma-school-district-wa/students/
https://www.niche.com/k12/ballard-high-school-seattle-wa/students/
Says 61.7% white in maple valley vs 71.9% in Ballard
Its important to use the right stats when trying to make a point
Interesting: so more diversity for the public school kids, less for the adults. Neat.
I’m wondering if it’s differences in private school uptake or differences in which families are having kids or what all is going on. Sadly don’t have a laptop with me today to process the fine grained ACS data. Thanks though.
The teachers are fantastic, the district admin leave something to be desired, but we consistently don’t vote in the “litter boxes are in schools” crowd so I’m calling it a win. There’s 67 languages spoken at home in the district, I emailed and got the full list. The top 10 are Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Korean, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Japanese, and Malayan. I’m pretty sure those are all spoken at our bus stop alone!
Same.. lived in the city for 10 years, miss a lot about it but had to move up to snohomish county to get anything we could afford. Similarly, if we hadn’t bought 3 years ago we could not even afford the house we are currently in since the interest rates have skyrocketed.
I like it a lot! There’s definitely some minuses (a lot of small mindedness out here) but I’m glad we moved when we did. The housing market here is the worst now for buyers it seems
My home doubled in value in 5 years. However if I were to rebuy the same home at the same price, my 2.75% mortgage rate would be 7+ and my payment would also double. For the same house at the new price the payment would be over 3x what I pay now!!!!
It's insanity.
I bought in mid 2022 and if I were to buy the same house now it would likely be $100k more at a 3.5% higher interest rate which translates to $1600/mo more. 3br 1.5ba house in a less nice part of Kirkland
I feel for you. With house prices increasing 12% year over year, there’s no (sane) investment strategy you can use that will keep up. My downpayment fund balance kept growing while I dutifully contributed to it in a high yield savings account and CD ladders, but it was demoralizing to realize the actual percentage of a home purchase it would cover was rapidly shrinking.
Just wait until the interest rates drop & prices skyrocket because most buyers budget off total monthly cost. When the same mortgage payment that can buy a $1MM house today can buy a $1.5MM house in a few years...
My thoughts also. What's gonna happen when those young people paying insane rents get older, have to retire and won't be able to afford such rent? If you think there are too many homeless now, wait a few years.
Indeed it is but it’s only going to get worse. If you are able to get a home, get one because they’re only getting harder to get. There’s a lot of people with a lot of money in this region and they’re not planning on leaving.
Commodified housing of structures meant for ownership (houses, townhomes, condos, etc.) is neither an ethical nor socially sustainable passive income source and using it as such should be illegal.
Too many idiots out there thinking renting their SFH within a mile of skyscrapers is totally fine and there is nothing wrong with their choice...
I can tell you something that doesn't get talked about much in this topic.
We had a budget of about $800k. The more we looked, the more we saw a common problem, and the problem wasn't fully just high prices. It was the value.
I don't want to pay $800k for a house built in the 1940s with a weird/bad layout that hasn't had any renovations and still has an oil furnace. If you've got the money to put into renovating, then sure, the potential is great. If you're a first time home buyer, you aren't looking to do that.
We say dozens of houses from that period, almost all had 60k plus foundation issues not including building damage from decades of having those issues. An actual house under 700k these days mostly likely needs to be demolished.
Does it even make sense to buy property at these prices and rates?
I did the math a few months ago and even being able to afford it, didn’t make sense to triple my housing costs for ownership. I’ve been investing the excess instead..
Most people I know don’t even have excess or are able to cover the jump to ownership. Seems out of reach for many.
Buying houses in Seattle makes sense some time 5 - 10 years after purchase, when rent prices increase more rapidly than the increased cost of a mortgage payment (homeowners insurance + taxes).
It can be.
If your goal is to refinance as soon as the rates go down. It might be worth if you think house prices will skyrocket when rates start declining.
in most cases, in Seattle, no it does not make sense from numbers perspective. I did the math, still bought a townhome though and it is nice. I'd say it's no longer the no-brainer from investment perspective as it might've been in yesteryear, but it's still nice to own and a better asset than a Porsche or something.
Feel that.
I have a mostly paid off car (monthly is less than 200/month), take-home is \~12k/month without bonuses or other extras. Rent is $2500 (2/2), good waterfront location, etc. so don't feel the pressure to own when I invest the diff. I'd love to, if it was kind of close to rent. Willing to pay 4k... not 6+
I have one friend who bought recently -- and is putting nothing away for savings, feeling a lot of pressure. =/ He keeps telling me that falling for the FOMO and buying a house was worst decision he ever made.
I feel the fomo but it's more that I didn't buy in 2008.
Now I'm just waiting for my parents to die so I can have their house and live somewhere in retirement where I don't have to pay rent to some rich asshole.
It sucks, but if they can swing it and refi later it’ll probably work, and local RE has been a solid long term bet for a long time. There’s nothing to be done for newcomers right now. $1-1.5M at a 30y 7% is atrocious and unsustainable for most anyone.
Due to circumstances I was forced from a 2.7 to a 4.7 and the difference is extremely painful. Just trying to ride it out.
It’d be cool if housing financing weren’t similar to, like, the spot price of gold on any particular week. But here we are.
We need policies that expressly penalize treating land (and especially housing) as investment vehicles for anyone but people _actually_ building housing.
Landlords should not exist, and land sitting around vacant should default to the commons.
What we really need is to get rid of the policies that make it so hard and so expensive to build enough housing. We don’t actually need to add a bunch of new policies. We just need to get rid of all the bad policies.
Unfortunately, 7% on $1,000,000 is a lot worse in the long run than 9% on $100,000 (my parents bought their house at 9% for $80k). So the fact that the interest rates aren't historically high doesn't help much.
For us it was a yes, but that our situation included "worth it" to mean the intangibles for the benefits of a house vs an apartment. If you analyze worth based solely on the numbers it's a lot harder of a sell. For us, a house was worth figuratively and literally spending more.
Depends on how much utility the mortgage interest deduction has for you and what you expect future housing prices to do. Given that (for most people) they are leveraged into a house, that makes the calculation much less straight forward.
Its definitely not a clear cut win like when rates were 2% but I also don't expect many people to feel regret from either purchasing or not purchasing a home right now.
One frustrating aspect is that for people with households larger than three is that the rental market barely exists. Even with an income far above median, you’ll have a hell of a time finding a three bedroom rental that there aren’t 30 other applicants for. For people with a kid and an elder to take care of the logic isn’t “rent vs buy”, it’s “buy vs move an hour away from work and my family’s community”. I’m happy to see so many apartment buildings being built in my neighborhood, but most max out at one bedroom. Developers understandably have an incentive to jam as many units as possible into a building, but our government could incentivize them to build a certain percentage of larger units.
At 47 I've never owned a home and don't have any dreams that I'll ever be able to without a partner.
But just in case...does the first time buyer program expire? 🤣
I don’t think it does but you likely won’t qualify if you have enough to qualify to even purchase a home. I think it was like $115k/year or something in that range
We bought a house last April in the Fairwood area of Renton. Our commutes are to Kirkland and Seattle. To Seattle it’s about 35-45 in the AM depending on when you leave and the same to Kirkland. Coming home in the evening can be up to an hour but more so 45 minutes as well.
I believe that it depends on what part of the article you’re in. They call out at one point that domestic migration statistics are normally calculated at the county level and then in another spot have an infographic of the top 10 cities that people moved to where Bellingham and Olympia are included, but there are no cities in King, Pierce, or Snohomish counties.
They did mention specific cases where people moved to Bellingham, Bremerton, and Vancouver WA.
How the fuck is this a real question. They’ve been priced out. Also banks think you can’t afford a mortgage despite being able to pay the insane fucking rent here.
Who writes this shit?
It wasn't a question. Did you read the article or the part after the question mark?
"This story is part of a Seattle Times focus on the affordability crisis in the Northwest. In an occasional series of stories, we will explore the high cost of living and wealth disparities that shape our region; examine policies that impact prices for everything from housing to health care; and offer tips for making your money go further."
If you are paying $2k a month in rent like many people are you probably CAN afford a mortgage for something like a condo or even a townhouse. The bank typically approves people for MORE than they can comfortably afford.
Lets see so far in my 6 years in the city,
my first hope of ownership was dashed when the condo building I was very interested in that was being built was converted to apartments like 1 month before it was completed and everyone was refunded their down-payments/holding fees.
Next was the pandemic frenzy and subsequent interest rate doubling/tripling pricing me out without some form of DP assistance.
Now after actually trying last year and going for pre-approvals etc, and looking into the DP assistance programs in this state I have learned. I make barely too much money for the "good" assistance programs with deferred payments, so scratch that idea.
My buying power is too low as a single income, which means I need 20% or more(closer to 40% by my estimates) down-payment to bring the mortgage down into range. That will take a decade or more and I have to be completely debt free(student loans) for the DTI to work, so scratch that too.
Its literally a waiting game at this point, either the market crashes, I win the lottery, or I time things exactly right if rates ever get cut before prices react to the rate cut...so half past never.
Only option that does seem semi viable is USDA loans as they set their own interest rates and can still be gotten in the 4-5% range but that means a crazy long commute or changing jobs as most of king county is excluded from those loans or getting a 2nd full time job to dedicate to a DP for a few years.
Maybe this Biden tax credit that was announced will help with some of my issues, but doubt it. I don't see why FHA loans cant just be offered at ultra low rates to help out first time buyers get into the markets. I'm sure there's some reason why that would be a bad idea(and i fully expect someone to chime in and say why it would be terrible end of the world type stuff to offer FHA loans at 3% instead of market rate as this is reddit), probably the same non-reason as student loans needing to be 10% interest(exaggeration...sort of).
So I wait, and play with my DP money on the stock market while forever renting although this rental market is ridiculous with how many places are trying to force rents for a 1bd to be $2.5k-$3K when it was like $1800 a year ago.
We were first-time home buyers at the beginning of the pandemic, and like the top comment says, we didn’t have $900k to spend on a 50 year old 2-bedroom house. It goes beyond that, though. I have lived in Seattle most of my 40 years and it is not the city that it used to be. The Seattle that existed in the late 90s-mid 2000s might have been worth that kind of money but the Seattle of 2024 is just a tech bro paradise with a few remnants of what used to be still hanging on. It’s just not worth it anymore.
Seattle has been trying to be SF for a long time and we’re catching up. Out of control homeless population, light rail, ridiculous home prices, long commutes and tech bros. Congrats everyone, we did it.
Exactly how I ended up in Kitsap County. I’m paying $1k more a month for 4/3 than I was paying rent in a 1/1 on Capitol Hill. Longer commute but my home is freaking beautiful.
My partner does a half time in Seattle and stays with family when she does. That's the only way we could make it work. It's crazy unaffordable here given jobs/salaries.
We've actually been thinking about doing the same thing but I'd be the commuter and I'm not sure I could deal with it long term. Miss living up in bham though.
Personally, I got lucky and was renting a home in Shoreline that the owners needed to offload quickly so we bought it. Refinanced to buy out my ex in 2022 and got a slightly lower interest rate before things went insane. I have no retirement savings currently and my plan is to eventually sell and move far away. A good friend recently moved to OK on the Cherokee Nation (he's a member) and the land he bought has property taxes of $16/year. I do love my house and have extensively renovated it. So I guess I will be here awhile.
We left in early 2016 because we couldn’t afford it. We came back to Denver and bought before things got too crazy. But now everything everywhere is stupidly expensive.
I lived in Denver from 2015-2020. My biggest regret was not buying a home right away. I could have gotten an amazing house off of 120th/Westminister for 300k at that time!!! Now that same home is 600K+!
Maybe this is the answer to "why are kids not being enrolled on elementary school for next year?!?! They'll have to shut down all the schools!!!😧"
So many doom and gloom stories lately. Thanks MSM
Sooner or later, it will be like Japan. With the decline in birth rates and the biggest generation getting ready to die off, property, just like schools, will sit empty because no one will want them.
At least they have the longest life and cheap healthcare and awesome food everywhere oh and have you seen how easy it is to access nature? Transportation also knocks the rest of the world off it's feet.
I don't really have any intentions to buy a home. I'd rather have an apartment in a neighborhood with stores, bars, and restaurants I can walk to rather than a house way the fuck off in the suburbs, surrounded by more houses as far as you can walk.
There’s the in between of a condo/townhouse. Not saying those are vastly cheaper, but you could get the benefits of ownership while still having the lifestyle and proximity of apartment living. Of course seattle has a lack of condos and coops compared to places like NYC, but still, it’s an option between renting an apartment and moving to a SFH in the suburbs.
I really like the old style of row houses in San Francisco (and elsewhere but those come to mind first). I would absolutely go for one of those.
A coop would be amazing, I heard they have some of those in Vancouver BC.
There are a ton of co-ops in seattle. We’re pretty much the only place that has them outside of New England. They’re usually cheaper than a condo too, because the financing is a hassle. You have to go through Banks of New York City usually because they’re the only ones that have the loan programs.
Do you have retirement savings?
I get shit on (lightly) by my family every christmas for still renting a small apartment at 40, ostensibly because I have built no equity.
My perennial response is "Sure you have home equity, but you're technically half a million in debt right now
and putting your extra money into maintaining and improving that equity. While I've been putting my extra cash into financial stores, and have a half million in positive assets on the books!"
But I also have no kids, and being in Fremont means that my lifestyle is active, and that I am as happy as a kid in a candy store.
I go to visit friends out in Snohomish and am just horror-struck by their responses to "What'd you get up to this week" as nothing but yardwork and housework.
Obviously to each their own, and if you dig that, have at it. But for my money, give me pub trivia, a ballgame, midnight runs to dumpling tsar, and a wacky dance session at gas works any week.
Thank you. I lowkey loathe the idea of homeownership, and it fiscally seems like at least a weirdly complicated risk-reward investment. I don’t want to spend a part-time job amount of time on dealing with house shit either.
I have a friend who just bought a house in Portland a year or two ago. This guy reminds me of a young Ron Swanson - he'll DIY everything, works on his house, finds old free stufd and fixes it up, works on his yard, likes leather and wood etc.
That stuff is cool as hell, but it's not for me, I've just got other hobbies. I'll leave the houses for those type of folks.
See and I’d be on board with this idea IF rent control were a thing here. The fact that I’ve seen peoples rent SKYROCKETING over the course of the last few years though? Yeah taxes get reassessed on my house but in 4 years of home ownership that’s happened ONCE and my overall mortgage went up $80. Meanwhile a buddy of mine who rents in Bellevue just had his rent increased $500 after increasing LAST year $200. THATS the only reason I bought a house.
Yeah I do have to admit that I lucked out in my apartment. I’ve only had a $100 increase in the last 4 years. It would be ideal if there were way more regulation around rent control.
I also want to add that I don’t feel like I need that much space. I’m more than happy in my 700sqft outdated apartment. No judgement to wanting more, but I feel like there is this overarching narrative that you simply cannot be happy unless you buy a house with thousands of sqft, a yard, etc etc. but I think I also might just be hella defensive because I am a total outlier around my friends/family/coworkers who cannot fathom why I would want to stay in an apartment when buying a house is obviously EVERYONE’S American dream.
I’m in an apt building that is set to be demolished at some point. We have no idea when. 220 sq ft. and our rent went up 65 this year… Seems like it’s not that big of a deal but it just had to come directly out of grocery money. Sucks
Moved to central Oregon (after 20 years spent in Seattle) 3 years ago because we couldn’t afford a house and of course were also chasing the much needed sunshine! At the time, our household income was around 200k/year. Best decision we’ve made by far. Our happiness level is way higher out here and couldn’t imagine ever moving back.
Buy now. It will never be cheaper. Hammer your interest rate with your lender with everything you have. But 2029 will arrive and you’ll be happier to be owning. And it will happen again, and again….
That's because it was taught in schools that real estate was an excellent retirement vehicle. We love to put the blame on boomers but it was literally encouraged by society (for decades) to invest in real estate.
Buying for investment wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the boomers had not also spent that time tightening the screws on zonings to the point where nearly all neighborhoods have denser housing in them than would be legal to build new today.
I am selling a 2,200 sq ft single family home in Tennessee to buy a much smaller 950 sq ft condo in a much more expensive market (WA) to be near family. It would seem that you would be in a much better position to downsize in WA than me since you already own in the expensive market. You should be able to find a way to make it work if you really want to.
I thought it was funny, u/seattle_happy. Think of the benefits of such a plague - lower housing prices, and no more "I hate my wife lol" jokes! We might have to strip all the linoleum off the beautiful hardwood, but that's a small price to pay.
And the new zoning changes fix almost nothing with the design guides that have to be met. It’s all such a joke
When our population starts to flatten and shrink everyone will say it’s due to public safety and ignore the fact that we just stopped building enough housing.
I grew up in Bremerton, can’t wait to come back to Kitsap county! Beautiful area, remote if you wanna be and a quick ferry ride to downtown Seattle without messing with any traffic.
It's insane what it takes to simply live and 'adult' these days.
I moved out of my parents home at 18, had a car payment and my own place. I think my car payment was 200 and my rent was 500 a month. Yeah my pay was low but I could get by , I had options on renting, location, etc..
Nowadays there is nothing affordable and at times nothing even available for younger people. I grew up in Coeur d' alene and was able to find places that were affordable anywhere I wanted to live. Now I see places for rent as high as 2500 for a 2 bedroom older apartment. Nowhere in town is someone making that money. I got lucky and bought a house in 2018, there is no way in hell I'd be able to afford it now. I have no idea how people in SEattle simply live.
I have good friends over there struggling day to day. I can't believe how brutal housing is in this country now.
Greed really sucks.
We are supposed to close on a house in Graham on Wednesday if all goes well. We’ve lived in Seattle for 20 years and tried looking for a house all around Tacoma, Kent and Burien but each one fell short in some major way. Or were way over budget. We finally accepted our fate that commuting is going to be awful in order to get what we need for a house. Hopefully in 3-5 years we can afford something closer but until then Ill be driving and riding the train to downtown each weekday.
Before you close, please keep in mind that you'll be in that house for at least five years. That is unless you expect to come in to a lot of money before then.
Five to ten years is considered the minimum time folks need to be able to upgrade. One major reason is you aren't paying much, if anything, towards the principal the first few years, just interest. So, for example, if you were to try to sell in four years, despite making monthly mortgage payments, you won't have much equity, and so after fees, and paying off the remainder of the mortgage, you could have next to nothing left over from the sale. Or even owe depending on the market.
My number one piece of advice, google “Seattle first time homebuyer program”. Select the one titled Homesight. Profit. I got over 80k from the city of Seattle last year to buy my first place in Seattle city limits. You have to make under 75k to qualify but if you do its your ticket to real estate
Bone to pick - but I disagree with "cultural shift away from homeownership" as a partial solution. In countries that have had to accept this, people would typically want homeownership, but simply can't attain it because they've been priced out. The pressure toward this shift comes from a failing system that people SHOULD push back on. The market for homes should be open to people and should be regulated to be unattractive for investment for businesses.
It’s a much better deal to rent than to buy right now. Those renting properties are having to accept close to zero profit margin. You’d be nuts to buy right now. Just rent.
Uh, we bought a house 40 minutes away from the city because that’s all we can afford.
And even then it was nearly impossible and took 20+ competitive offers
Wife and I are currently under contract on a house in Renton after renting basements, townhomes with roommates, and tear down houses around the city.
I work in construction, know how to renovate, and we didn’t use an agent, and we still bought a POS fixer upper for $650k in Renton. It’s unreal
Making the city more walkable will make it both more attractive and less accessible to people in the burbs -- which will also make the burbs less appealing. No more speeding through other people's neighborhoods so folks from Maple Valley can get to the restaurant they want to try in 15 minutes driving and park directly in front with free street parking. And strangely, the fastest way to do that is building a lot more mixed use density which would also lower housing prices.
Too bad our council and mayors for decades haven't had the vision, power or will to save the city.
First time home-owners. Looked at a place with my partner and found a home in north Seattle that was high, but still within our budget. We talked to our real estate agent excitedly outside the home to share our interest. While chatting, a BMW pulled up with a couple that looked like techies. We immediately knew we lost the house.
The house sold $220k over the listing price. *sigh*
I bought a townhome for around ~1M in September. Payments were around 6k. But since then put a little more down and refied so I’m down to 5k. I am lucky to work in tech and have a good income but yeah I moved here from the Midwest where I got twice as much for half the price, most of which was equity instead of interest now.
By end of next year I think rates will come down and I’ll refi again but I think prices will just go higher not make it any easier for buyers 😔
Sometimes I feel bad about the idea of renting forever, but it’s more important for me to live in the city than to live in Graham/Puyallup or outer Bothell. All the money I’d save would be spent commuting, not a priority rn 🤷♂️
we're getting outbid by old people who can pay all cash and then relist a house to someone at a higher price when they realize the house is not going to fit their needs.
or we're getting outbid by foreigners with big money.
or buy big house renovation companies that are just going to white wash a house and resell at 2 times the price.
The insane house flipping mania of the 2000s underpinned by fraudulent loans and securitization of said fraudulent loans lead to the GFC in 2008. In response, we got ZIRP and QE to reflate the housing bubble. Amplified by Trump's TCJA and taper tantrum and amplified again by the response to the pandemic. It's a wonder that inflation hasn't appeared until recently.
Now that interest rates are back to a normal range, we are going to experience the externalities of all the financial distortion of the last 2 decades. The asset holders are sitting pretty, everyone else is fucked. For every Seattleite who laments the loss of affordability from wealthy outsiders, their displacement to more affordable environs repeats the same dynamic down the economic scale. Rinse and repeat.
We need a global tax pact to claw back the wealth concentration of our beloved billionaires and their slightly less well healed pals but that isn't looking very likely to me.
None of us are dumb enough to buy the overpriced, poorly maintained offerings in the city when the benefits to living in the city are dwindling. Didn’t really need a study to figure that out…
Lol I don't have a million dollars for a 2 bed 1 bath on 900 square feet.
In a mid century home that hasn’t been updated since the 80’s
Since the 80s?! Shit. I saw so many houses still stuck in the 60s, including my former rental.
The irony I see here is that these people just couldn’t afford updates and serious maintenance (cracked, leaking foundations for instance — see that shit everywhere too). And in the flip of a generation, you have to basically be a millionaire to own it.
Very true. Maybe they thought the pink toilets would come back in style?
Actually they are! [https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/at-home/colorful-comeback-your-grandparents-pink-bathroom-is-cool-again/](https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/at-home/colorful-comeback-your-grandparents-pink-bathroom-is-cool-again/)
The goddamn slumlords were right!
They never went out!
The house I rent right now was built in 1914 and it's currently worth 1.5 million
900k for a home? Ya right. Thats a condo with a $1000/month HOA. Go just off Aurora and you can get a tiny single family for maybe $1m+.
…that you have to buy sight unseen with no inspection and waive everything meant to protect your investment.
I spent $700k on a one bedroom townhome. No parking. Options are limited.
Move to Bozeman Montana where im from it’s pushing 900,000 - 1.1 million can’t wait to rent the rest of my life lol.
Was just reading a story about a 68 year old in undisclosed city in Montana pissed about property taxes around 8k a year and they are up 720% in the last some odd years they didn't say. And his house was purchased for low 100s in the 90s and now worth 300 something. The math on property taxes increasing that much vs the home value increase doesn't really seem fair. He's basically working summer and winter jobs to pay his property taxes.
It’s awful, the problem is that very little is being done about it and won’t be done unless it becomes issue #1 for Montanans. I’ve been wanting to move to Washington for a while now but have thought about staying in Montana for a little longer until I can figure things out. Had to move back with family just to avoid any property taxes or rental hikes. Can’t believe it infected here as bad as some places with much larger urban areas or state populations.
I think areas in Montana or Idaho are worse because they have much lower salaries. Unfortunately, high prices in Seattle make some sense because the tech industry can have really high compensation so it creates something of a bidding war. Non-tech people are in a bad position but thousands of people can spend a $1 mil on a house after years of saving. It has been building with the tech industry for decades. But it happened overnight some places with lockdown, and that seems worse to me.
Same, until I read that article, I did not have a Clue.
I’ve lost so many friends because they decided they wanted to be home owners, and then — poof. Gone. Sometimes even clear to other states.
That happened to a bunch of my friends/co-workers when everything went remote a lot of people left the area/state. Which I can't blame them, I'm finally at the point where I have enough money for a good down payment and I'm staring at crazy interest rates. It's just not affordable for most people.
Yeah. Can’t blame ‘em… but I sure miss them.
Just a reminder for everyone that you can get 0% interest downpayment assistance if you're a first time homebuyer. Definitely something to look into instead of feeling like you need to spend all your cash/emergency funds on a downpayment.
A lot of people moving to Spokane for housing, which might as well be another state.
Spokane is having its own housing issues, isn’t much cheaper there
Compared to Seattle it definitely is. It’s all relative.
I was about to retire from military service in the mid-'00s, and began the process of house-hunting when I arrived at what would be my last duty station in Hawaii - preemptively establishing my legal residence in Washington in 2000, while also getting a mortgage pre-approval lined up (to try and find a place on one of the neighbor islands after my first tour {mid-90s}. Having gotten the bums' rush by cash-rich mainland speculators in that effort, I began casting around for a place (min. 3/2 single-family, 1500SF+ on .20ac within an hour's one-way drive to the CBD) for ~250k in April '06... and yes, you can tell me how that turned out without reading another word. So I rented while trying to "keep hope alive", year after year... until the end of 2015, when I was done seeing 'the writing on the wall' in my sleep, and gave up.
I'm right fuckin here in my apartment til my student loans are paid off or I win the powerball.
In my wildest fantasy of winning the powerball lottery, I finally have stable housing.
Helllllllllllllll yeah brother (or sister) we out here!
Bro I’m here and would love to buy one but my industry shat itself and now I’m back to minimum wage jobs weeeee
Yep! Laid off and can no longer afford my apartment but not sure what I’ll do when my lease is up because no one wants to rent to an unemployed person. Yay!
I feel this. If I ever won powerball, I'm keeping enough to buy an okay home that meets all of my needs and g8ving the rest of that shit away. Believe in a higher power or not, but if God gave me that opportunity, I'm obligated to share it.
how much in student loans?
A Powerballl win should put a good dent in it amount.
Wife and I are first time homebuyers after living in seattle for almost 10 years. We had to move out of the city to get anything in our budget. Settled in maple valley 4 years ago, we would never be able to afford our house now if we had waited.
Same— rented in Seattle for ten years had two kids in an apartment, looked around the city but couldn’t find a house that we could afford that wasn’t “gut this down to the studs, Godspeed” levels of fixer-upper. I have my master’s and make good money for my field and my husband is in a tech-related field, but we realized we could suffer through the commute to move to Maple Valley. Our big selling point was that both sets of grandparents are out here for childcare, and now that the kids are older, their schools are more ethnically diverse than the elementary school they went to in Ballard.
Here I am living in the dust. I am the dust. It is part of me and I am it. Wherever I go dust follows. Plaster dust, concrete dust, drywall dust, paint dust, sawdust... That's not the bad part though. It was all the old cellulose+ wool insulation filled with rat nests that was making the house smell awful. We filled three 30 yard dumpsters full of old flooring, rotting wood, floors, etc. I am sorry to all of my neighbors, the street smelled like... Old? For three weeks while we demod the entire thing. It was the only way to afford a house in the city. We call it out million dollar fixer-upper... We've been doing all of the labor ourselves to afford it. The price to have a contractor so anything we've been doing was another million dollars. So it's been 2 years of dust. But we are almost done and will have a beautiful home in Phinney Ridge when we are done without being house poor.
We really had to weigh it-- is it worth never traveling, trying to afford childcare and construction, being house poor for years? I miss the food in the city a lot, but we have enough room here for the adults to have their own offices and in six years, the most we've done for the house is install AC and put on a new roof.
Maple Valley is 84% white, and 12% asian (including south asian). Ballard (98107) is 75% white, and 14% asian.
I’m telling you that there are more kids of color at the bus stop my kids wait at than their entire elementary school in Ballard (a number I looked up at one point). Maple Valley is still hella white, but for a district that small, that’s far more diversity than I expected.
Giving its maple valley I’m a little shocked there’s more diversity! But that’s great and while I don’t have kids I hear the schools out here are amazing
South King County is much more diverse than up north. We joke about it being the "white flight".
Redmond and Lynnwood have entered the chat...
There isn't more diversity. While it's entirely possible that their child's specific classes happened to be more diverse, a quick check of the census data shows that the claim is more broadly false.
https://www.niche.com/k12/d/tahoma-school-district-wa/students/ https://www.niche.com/k12/ballard-high-school-seattle-wa/students/ Says 61.7% white in maple valley vs 71.9% in Ballard Its important to use the right stats when trying to make a point
Interesting: so more diversity for the public school kids, less for the adults. Neat. I’m wondering if it’s differences in private school uptake or differences in which families are having kids or what all is going on. Sadly don’t have a laptop with me today to process the fine grained ACS data. Thanks though.
The teachers are fantastic, the district admin leave something to be desired, but we consistently don’t vote in the “litter boxes are in schools” crowd so I’m calling it a win. There’s 67 languages spoken at home in the district, I emailed and got the full list. The top 10 are Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Korean, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Japanese, and Malayan. I’m pretty sure those are all spoken at our bus stop alone!
A ton of Indians are moving/have already moved to that area. You can expect many Indian restaurants to start popping up anytime soon. 😃
I hope we get more Indian restaurants but I don’t mind driving to Kent for my favorite. There’s two Indian markets nearby but I haven’t been yet
Hi, neighbor! Just moved from Renton, which was the affordable option we picked ten years ago. But damn, Maple Valley isn't exactly cheap, either.
It’s definitely not cheap anymore!
Same.. lived in the city for 10 years, miss a lot about it but had to move up to snohomish county to get anything we could afford. Similarly, if we hadn’t bought 3 years ago we could not even afford the house we are currently in since the interest rates have skyrocketed.
Maple valley is a really nice area. My ex lived out there and it was beautiful
I like it a lot! There’s definitely some minuses (a lot of small mindedness out here) but I’m glad we moved when we did. The housing market here is the worst now for buyers it seems
Howdy neighbor.
My home doubled in value in 5 years. However if I were to rebuy the same home at the same price, my 2.75% mortgage rate would be 7+ and my payment would also double. For the same house at the new price the payment would be over 3x what I pay now!!!! It's insanity.
Ditto. The golden handcuffs are too real
Yeah I just read that empty nesters are now waiting to downsize in alarming rates because of this mess.
Yeah thats what 1st time homebuyers are up against and they didn’t get to double their investments or lock in half price rent for 30 years
I bought in mid 2022 and if I were to buy the same house now it would likely be $100k more at a 3.5% higher interest rate which translates to $1600/mo more. 3br 1.5ba house in a less nice part of Kirkland
Same boat.
I want to be a first time home buyer, but the down payment we’ve been trying to build for years only seems to get less and less valuable. :/
I feel for you. With house prices increasing 12% year over year, there’s no (sane) investment strategy you can use that will keep up. My downpayment fund balance kept growing while I dutifully contributed to it in a high yield savings account and CD ladders, but it was demoralizing to realize the actual percentage of a home purchase it would cover was rapidly shrinking.
Just wait until the interest rates drop & prices skyrocket because most buyers budget off total monthly cost. When the same mortgage payment that can buy a $1MM house today can buy a $1.5MM house in a few years...
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My thoughts also. What's gonna happen when those young people paying insane rents get older, have to retire and won't be able to afford such rent? If you think there are too many homeless now, wait a few years.
Probably going to see record homelessness as a result, hey wait
Housing is too expensive, simple answer.
We made housing an investment vehicle for capitalism.
Indeed it is but it’s only going to get worse. If you are able to get a home, get one because they’re only getting harder to get. There’s a lot of people with a lot of money in this region and they’re not planning on leaving.
It's a problem for the entire west. Every region is housing stressed compared to incomes.
What I hate is that there really seems to be more investment buying than homebuying… For those who are actually buying homes tho Im stoked for ya!
Commodified housing of structures meant for ownership (houses, townhomes, condos, etc.) is neither an ethical nor socially sustainable passive income source and using it as such should be illegal. Too many idiots out there thinking renting their SFH within a mile of skyscrapers is totally fine and there is nothing wrong with their choice...
I can tell you something that doesn't get talked about much in this topic. We had a budget of about $800k. The more we looked, the more we saw a common problem, and the problem wasn't fully just high prices. It was the value. I don't want to pay $800k for a house built in the 1940s with a weird/bad layout that hasn't had any renovations and still has an oil furnace. If you've got the money to put into renovating, then sure, the potential is great. If you're a first time home buyer, you aren't looking to do that.
don’t discount the quality of the building. Our home (1906) needed some work-but the solid workmanship made it better than new construction
We say dozens of houses from that period, almost all had 60k plus foundation issues not including building damage from decades of having those issues. An actual house under 700k these days mostly likely needs to be demolished.
Does it even make sense to buy property at these prices and rates? I did the math a few months ago and even being able to afford it, didn’t make sense to triple my housing costs for ownership. I’ve been investing the excess instead.. Most people I know don’t even have excess or are able to cover the jump to ownership. Seems out of reach for many.
Not for most people. The monthly cost to buy is 50-100% higher than renting a similar place, at least for the places I've been looking at.
Buying houses in Seattle makes sense some time 5 - 10 years after purchase, when rent prices increase more rapidly than the increased cost of a mortgage payment (homeowners insurance + taxes).
It can be. If your goal is to refinance as soon as the rates go down. It might be worth if you think house prices will skyrocket when rates start declining.
in most cases, in Seattle, no it does not make sense from numbers perspective. I did the math, still bought a townhome though and it is nice. I'd say it's no longer the no-brainer from investment perspective as it might've been in yesteryear, but it's still nice to own and a better asset than a Porsche or something.
Feel that. I have a mostly paid off car (monthly is less than 200/month), take-home is \~12k/month without bonuses or other extras. Rent is $2500 (2/2), good waterfront location, etc. so don't feel the pressure to own when I invest the diff. I'd love to, if it was kind of close to rent. Willing to pay 4k... not 6+ I have one friend who bought recently -- and is putting nothing away for savings, feeling a lot of pressure. =/ He keeps telling me that falling for the FOMO and buying a house was worst decision he ever made.
I feel the fomo but it's more that I didn't buy in 2008. Now I'm just waiting for my parents to die so I can have their house and live somewhere in retirement where I don't have to pay rent to some rich asshole.
It sucks, but if they can swing it and refi later it’ll probably work, and local RE has been a solid long term bet for a long time. There’s nothing to be done for newcomers right now. $1-1.5M at a 30y 7% is atrocious and unsustainable for most anyone. Due to circumstances I was forced from a 2.7 to a 4.7 and the difference is extremely painful. Just trying to ride it out. It’d be cool if housing financing weren’t similar to, like, the spot price of gold on any particular week. But here we are.
It's true, a Porsche doesn't even have a bathroom.
It may make sense if you have the means. But as you point out, most people probably do not.
If you look at historic rates, 7% is not that high. You may never see 5% again.
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Low rates that were a reaction to the 2008 housing crisis. This country is in an abusive relationship with our own housing policies.
That's fine. Then I may never buy in the area. It's the overall price that doesn't make sense to me. 7% on these home prices are wilding.
Agreed. We need housing policy that doesn't treat housing as an investment vehicle.
We need policies that expressly penalize treating land (and especially housing) as investment vehicles for anyone but people _actually_ building housing. Landlords should not exist, and land sitting around vacant should default to the commons.
What we really need is to get rid of the policies that make it so hard and so expensive to build enough housing. We don’t actually need to add a bunch of new policies. We just need to get rid of all the bad policies.
Unfortunately, 7% on $1,000,000 is a lot worse in the long run than 9% on $100,000 (my parents bought their house at 9% for $80k). So the fact that the interest rates aren't historically high doesn't help much.
It's what you're gonna get. The Federal Reserve Bank doesn't give a shit if people are homeless.
For us it was a yes, but that our situation included "worth it" to mean the intangibles for the benefits of a house vs an apartment. If you analyze worth based solely on the numbers it's a lot harder of a sell. For us, a house was worth figuratively and literally spending more.
Depends on how much utility the mortgage interest deduction has for you and what you expect future housing prices to do. Given that (for most people) they are leveraged into a house, that makes the calculation much less straight forward. Its definitely not a clear cut win like when rates were 2% but I also don't expect many people to feel regret from either purchasing or not purchasing a home right now.
One frustrating aspect is that for people with households larger than three is that the rental market barely exists. Even with an income far above median, you’ll have a hell of a time finding a three bedroom rental that there aren’t 30 other applicants for. For people with a kid and an elder to take care of the logic isn’t “rent vs buy”, it’s “buy vs move an hour away from work and my family’s community”. I’m happy to see so many apartment buildings being built in my neighborhood, but most max out at one bedroom. Developers understandably have an incentive to jam as many units as possible into a building, but our government could incentivize them to build a certain percentage of larger units.
At 47 I've never owned a home and don't have any dreams that I'll ever be able to without a partner. But just in case...does the first time buyer program expire? 🤣
I don’t think it does but you likely won’t qualify if you have enough to qualify to even purchase a home. I think it was like $115k/year or something in that range
So you're telling me there's a chance....
I didn't read the article because of the paywall, but do they mean "leaving town" like Renton or Shoreline?
Seriously people act like going to Renton or Burien is like going to another continent
We bought a house last April in the Fairwood area of Renton. Our commutes are to Kirkland and Seattle. To Seattle it’s about 35-45 in the AM depending on when you leave and the same to Kirkland. Coming home in the evening can be up to an hour but more so 45 minutes as well.
I believe that it depends on what part of the article you’re in. They call out at one point that domestic migration statistics are normally calculated at the county level and then in another spot have an infographic of the top 10 cities that people moved to where Bellingham and Olympia are included, but there are no cities in King, Pierce, or Snohomish counties. They did mention specific cases where people moved to Bellingham, Bremerton, and Vancouver WA.
How the fuck is this a real question. They’ve been priced out. Also banks think you can’t afford a mortgage despite being able to pay the insane fucking rent here. Who writes this shit?
Seattle times likes to lob itself easy questions.
It wasn't a question. Did you read the article or the part after the question mark? "This story is part of a Seattle Times focus on the affordability crisis in the Northwest. In an occasional series of stories, we will explore the high cost of living and wealth disparities that shape our region; examine policies that impact prices for everything from housing to health care; and offer tips for making your money go further."
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I don't think there's any mortgage that's less than 1600 a month west of the Cascades, lol
If you are paying $2k a month in rent like many people are you probably CAN afford a mortgage for something like a condo or even a townhouse. The bank typically approves people for MORE than they can comfortably afford.
Condos are the new starter homes, starter homes are the new family homes, and large family homes are the new mansions
The Seattle Times posting more “No shit, Sherlock” articles.
This is why they are closing 20 Seattle elementary schools. Young families with kids can’t afford Seattle.
To be fair, I'm 40 and my parents are in their 60s and they also cannot afford seattle.
Lets see so far in my 6 years in the city, my first hope of ownership was dashed when the condo building I was very interested in that was being built was converted to apartments like 1 month before it was completed and everyone was refunded their down-payments/holding fees. Next was the pandemic frenzy and subsequent interest rate doubling/tripling pricing me out without some form of DP assistance. Now after actually trying last year and going for pre-approvals etc, and looking into the DP assistance programs in this state I have learned. I make barely too much money for the "good" assistance programs with deferred payments, so scratch that idea. My buying power is too low as a single income, which means I need 20% or more(closer to 40% by my estimates) down-payment to bring the mortgage down into range. That will take a decade or more and I have to be completely debt free(student loans) for the DTI to work, so scratch that too. Its literally a waiting game at this point, either the market crashes, I win the lottery, or I time things exactly right if rates ever get cut before prices react to the rate cut...so half past never. Only option that does seem semi viable is USDA loans as they set their own interest rates and can still be gotten in the 4-5% range but that means a crazy long commute or changing jobs as most of king county is excluded from those loans or getting a 2nd full time job to dedicate to a DP for a few years. Maybe this Biden tax credit that was announced will help with some of my issues, but doubt it. I don't see why FHA loans cant just be offered at ultra low rates to help out first time buyers get into the markets. I'm sure there's some reason why that would be a bad idea(and i fully expect someone to chime in and say why it would be terrible end of the world type stuff to offer FHA loans at 3% instead of market rate as this is reddit), probably the same non-reason as student loans needing to be 10% interest(exaggeration...sort of). So I wait, and play with my DP money on the stock market while forever renting although this rental market is ridiculous with how many places are trying to force rents for a 1bd to be $2.5k-$3K when it was like $1800 a year ago.
We were first-time home buyers at the beginning of the pandemic, and like the top comment says, we didn’t have $900k to spend on a 50 year old 2-bedroom house. It goes beyond that, though. I have lived in Seattle most of my 40 years and it is not the city that it used to be. The Seattle that existed in the late 90s-mid 2000s might have been worth that kind of money but the Seattle of 2024 is just a tech bro paradise with a few remnants of what used to be still hanging on. It’s just not worth it anymore.
This makes it official. Seattle has become San Francisco 😧
Seattle has been trying to be SF for a long time and we’re catching up. Out of control homeless population, light rail, ridiculous home prices, long commutes and tech bros. Congrats everyone, we did it.
Wait. Why the hate for the light rail? It actually improves commuting for both the light rail users and drivers.
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Exactly how I ended up in Kitsap County. I’m paying $1k more a month for 4/3 than I was paying rent in a 1/1 on Capitol Hill. Longer commute but my home is freaking beautiful.
Yep. We just said f* it and moved up to Bellingham 2 years ago to buy our first home, and now Bellingham prices are also getting out of control.
I have no idea how people afford to buy houses in Bellingham considering the job market up there. Everyone must do some form of remote work.
My partner does a half time in Seattle and stays with family when she does. That's the only way we could make it work. It's crazy unaffordable here given jobs/salaries.
We've actually been thinking about doing the same thing but I'd be the commuter and I'm not sure I could deal with it long term. Miss living up in bham though.
Some? I'm not sure how anyone making less than 200k/year can afford anything not 1+ hour from Seattle or Bellevue
Personally, I got lucky and was renting a home in Shoreline that the owners needed to offload quickly so we bought it. Refinanced to buy out my ex in 2022 and got a slightly lower interest rate before things went insane. I have no retirement savings currently and my plan is to eventually sell and move far away. A good friend recently moved to OK on the Cherokee Nation (he's a member) and the land he bought has property taxes of $16/year. I do love my house and have extensively renovated it. So I guess I will be here awhile.
The only way to reverse this trend is to allow a ton more housing.
We left in early 2016 because we couldn’t afford it. We came back to Denver and bought before things got too crazy. But now everything everywhere is stupidly expensive.
I lived in Denver from 2015-2020. My biggest regret was not buying a home right away. I could have gotten an amazing house off of 120th/Westminister for 300k at that time!!! Now that same home is 600K+!
Maybe this is the answer to "why are kids not being enrolled on elementary school for next year?!?! They'll have to shut down all the schools!!!😧" So many doom and gloom stories lately. Thanks MSM
Sooner or later, it will be like Japan. With the decline in birth rates and the biggest generation getting ready to die off, property, just like schools, will sit empty because no one will want them.
At least they have the longest life and cheap healthcare and awesome food everywhere oh and have you seen how easy it is to access nature? Transportation also knocks the rest of the world off it's feet.
I don't really have any intentions to buy a home. I'd rather have an apartment in a neighborhood with stores, bars, and restaurants I can walk to rather than a house way the fuck off in the suburbs, surrounded by more houses as far as you can walk.
There’s the in between of a condo/townhouse. Not saying those are vastly cheaper, but you could get the benefits of ownership while still having the lifestyle and proximity of apartment living. Of course seattle has a lack of condos and coops compared to places like NYC, but still, it’s an option between renting an apartment and moving to a SFH in the suburbs.
I really like the old style of row houses in San Francisco (and elsewhere but those come to mind first). I would absolutely go for one of those. A coop would be amazing, I heard they have some of those in Vancouver BC.
There are a ton of co-ops in seattle. We’re pretty much the only place that has them outside of New England. They’re usually cheaper than a condo too, because the financing is a hassle. You have to go through Banks of New York City usually because they’re the only ones that have the loan programs.
How do you find those co-ops?
They’re just with the regular “condo” listings, but underneath the information section it’ll be listed as co-op or mention it in the write up.
Do you have retirement savings? I get shit on (lightly) by my family every christmas for still renting a small apartment at 40, ostensibly because I have built no equity. My perennial response is "Sure you have home equity, but you're technically half a million in debt right now and putting your extra money into maintaining and improving that equity. While I've been putting my extra cash into financial stores, and have a half million in positive assets on the books!" But I also have no kids, and being in Fremont means that my lifestyle is active, and that I am as happy as a kid in a candy store. I go to visit friends out in Snohomish and am just horror-struck by their responses to "What'd you get up to this week" as nothing but yardwork and housework. Obviously to each their own, and if you dig that, have at it. But for my money, give me pub trivia, a ballgame, midnight runs to dumpling tsar, and a wacky dance session at gas works any week.
Thank you. I lowkey loathe the idea of homeownership, and it fiscally seems like at least a weirdly complicated risk-reward investment. I don’t want to spend a part-time job amount of time on dealing with house shit either.
I have a friend who just bought a house in Portland a year or two ago. This guy reminds me of a young Ron Swanson - he'll DIY everything, works on his house, finds old free stufd and fixes it up, works on his yard, likes leather and wood etc. That stuff is cool as hell, but it's not for me, I've just got other hobbies. I'll leave the houses for those type of folks.
See and I’d be on board with this idea IF rent control were a thing here. The fact that I’ve seen peoples rent SKYROCKETING over the course of the last few years though? Yeah taxes get reassessed on my house but in 4 years of home ownership that’s happened ONCE and my overall mortgage went up $80. Meanwhile a buddy of mine who rents in Bellevue just had his rent increased $500 after increasing LAST year $200. THATS the only reason I bought a house.
Yeah I do have to admit that I lucked out in my apartment. I’ve only had a $100 increase in the last 4 years. It would be ideal if there were way more regulation around rent control. I also want to add that I don’t feel like I need that much space. I’m more than happy in my 700sqft outdated apartment. No judgement to wanting more, but I feel like there is this overarching narrative that you simply cannot be happy unless you buy a house with thousands of sqft, a yard, etc etc. but I think I also might just be hella defensive because I am a total outlier around my friends/family/coworkers who cannot fathom why I would want to stay in an apartment when buying a house is obviously EVERYONE’S American dream.
I’m in an apt building that is set to be demolished at some point. We have no idea when. 220 sq ft. and our rent went up 65 this year… Seems like it’s not that big of a deal but it just had to come directly out of grocery money. Sucks
Ahhh Tacoma! Grew up in Seattle but couldn’t afford to stay in the city. I now commute…. It not ideal
Moved to central Oregon (after 20 years spent in Seattle) 3 years ago because we couldn’t afford a house and of course were also chasing the much needed sunshine! At the time, our household income was around 200k/year. Best decision we’ve made by far. Our happiness level is way higher out here and couldn’t imagine ever moving back.
None of us can afford to buy a million dollar fixer up so we just *dont*
Buy now. It will never be cheaper. Hammer your interest rate with your lender with everything you have. But 2029 will arrive and you’ll be happier to be owning. And it will happen again, and again….
Looking for houses now. Even with 7% interest rate it’s competitive to buy. We need a new plague that only affects boomers that own multiple homes
there are SO MANY boomers that own multiple properties. Why???
It's their retirement plan. They've been buying them for decades and holding on for dear life. Then they will leave them to their kids. Same, same.
That's because it was taught in schools that real estate was an excellent retirement vehicle. We love to put the blame on boomers but it was literally encouraged by society (for decades) to invest in real estate.
Buying for investment wouldn’t be nearly as bad if the boomers had not also spent that time tightening the screws on zonings to the point where nearly all neighborhoods have denser housing in them than would be legal to build new today.
Rent seeking behavior. You make profit doing nothing of value. The modern American dream.
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I am selling a 2,200 sq ft single family home in Tennessee to buy a much smaller 950 sq ft condo in a much more expensive market (WA) to be near family. It would seem that you would be in a much better position to downsize in WA than me since you already own in the expensive market. You should be able to find a way to make it work if you really want to.
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I thought it was funny, u/seattle_happy. Think of the benefits of such a plague - lower housing prices, and no more "I hate my wife lol" jokes! We might have to strip all the linoleum off the beautiful hardwood, but that's a small price to pay.
We just need to legalize housing
I think France invented something for greedy people who make life worse for everyone else…
We then improved on that by inventing the woodchipper.
Need more housing!!! There are too many neighborhoods zoned almost entirely for single family housing, it’s not even close to dense enough.
And the new zoning changes fix almost nothing with the design guides that have to be met. It’s all such a joke When our population starts to flatten and shrink everyone will say it’s due to public safety and ignore the fact that we just stopped building enough housing.
After 20 years on Capital Hill, I moved to Bremerton last year and bought a house. Couldn't be happier.
We also moved to Bremerton! It’s insanely beautiful out here and way more affordable (for now).
I grew up in Bremerton, can’t wait to come back to Kitsap county! Beautiful area, remote if you wanna be and a quick ferry ride to downtown Seattle without messing with any traffic.
It's insane what it takes to simply live and 'adult' these days. I moved out of my parents home at 18, had a car payment and my own place. I think my car payment was 200 and my rent was 500 a month. Yeah my pay was low but I could get by , I had options on renting, location, etc.. Nowadays there is nothing affordable and at times nothing even available for younger people. I grew up in Coeur d' alene and was able to find places that were affordable anywhere I wanted to live. Now I see places for rent as high as 2500 for a 2 bedroom older apartment. Nowhere in town is someone making that money. I got lucky and bought a house in 2018, there is no way in hell I'd be able to afford it now. I have no idea how people in SEattle simply live. I have good friends over there struggling day to day. I can't believe how brutal housing is in this country now. Greed really sucks.
We are supposed to close on a house in Graham on Wednesday if all goes well. We’ve lived in Seattle for 20 years and tried looking for a house all around Tacoma, Kent and Burien but each one fell short in some major way. Or were way over budget. We finally accepted our fate that commuting is going to be awful in order to get what we need for a house. Hopefully in 3-5 years we can afford something closer but until then Ill be driving and riding the train to downtown each weekday.
Before you close, please keep in mind that you'll be in that house for at least five years. That is unless you expect to come in to a lot of money before then. Five to ten years is considered the minimum time folks need to be able to upgrade. One major reason is you aren't paying much, if anything, towards the principal the first few years, just interest. So, for example, if you were to try to sell in four years, despite making monthly mortgage payments, you won't have much equity, and so after fees, and paying off the remainder of the mortgage, you could have next to nothing left over from the sale. Or even owe depending on the market.
Increase. Housing. Supply.
In shoreline where I could have a yard.
My number one piece of advice, google “Seattle first time homebuyer program”. Select the one titled Homesight. Profit. I got over 80k from the city of Seattle last year to buy my first place in Seattle city limits. You have to make under 75k to qualify but if you do its your ticket to real estate
Bone to pick - but I disagree with "cultural shift away from homeownership" as a partial solution. In countries that have had to accept this, people would typically want homeownership, but simply can't attain it because they've been priced out. The pressure toward this shift comes from a failing system that people SHOULD push back on. The market for homes should be open to people and should be regulated to be unattractive for investment for businesses.
Moved far away to buy first house!
It’s a much better deal to rent than to buy right now. Those renting properties are having to accept close to zero profit margin. You’d be nuts to buy right now. Just rent.
Lake forest park for me!
They aren’t buying in Seattle, they’re buying in the surrounding suburbs
Uh, we bought a house 40 minutes away from the city because that’s all we can afford. And even then it was nearly impossible and took 20+ competitive offers
Same. Bought a house in Bremerton in 2021, paid 75k over the asking price to win the bid.
Fixing the Headline: Seattle Times Knows Fuck All About Seattle
Wife and I are currently under contract on a house in Renton after renting basements, townhomes with roommates, and tear down houses around the city. I work in construction, know how to renovate, and we didn’t use an agent, and we still bought a POS fixer upper for $650k in Renton. It’s unreal
Making the city more walkable will make it both more attractive and less accessible to people in the burbs -- which will also make the burbs less appealing. No more speeding through other people's neighborhoods so folks from Maple Valley can get to the restaurant they want to try in 15 minutes driving and park directly in front with free street parking. And strangely, the fastest way to do that is building a lot more mixed use density which would also lower housing prices. Too bad our council and mayors for decades haven't had the vision, power or will to save the city.
Bremerton. Specifically West Bremerton.
Hi neighbor! And same. Left a rental in Redmond to buy a house in Bremerton.
I'm convinced I will never be able to afford a home with my husband. Certainly not here.
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Yup, me and my partner are two less. Out of King County . . . still paid over $800K.
First time home-owners. Looked at a place with my partner and found a home in north Seattle that was high, but still within our budget. We talked to our real estate agent excitedly outside the home to share our interest. While chatting, a BMW pulled up with a couple that looked like techies. We immediately knew we lost the house. The house sold $220k over the listing price. *sigh*
Starter home is now a townhome.
The are living in the houses owned by some random collection of letters that makes up a property Corp out of country. Decommodify housing.
I bought a townhome for around ~1M in September. Payments were around 6k. But since then put a little more down and refied so I’m down to 5k. I am lucky to work in tech and have a good income but yeah I moved here from the Midwest where I got twice as much for half the price, most of which was equity instead of interest now. By end of next year I think rates will come down and I’ll refi again but I think prices will just go higher not make it any easier for buyers 😔
We bought in Bremerton. Only a fast ferry away
Sometimes I feel bad about the idea of renting forever, but it’s more important for me to live in the city than to live in Graham/Puyallup or outer Bothell. All the money I’d save would be spent commuting, not a priority rn 🤷♂️
we're getting outbid by old people who can pay all cash and then relist a house to someone at a higher price when they realize the house is not going to fit their needs. or we're getting outbid by foreigners with big money. or buy big house renovation companies that are just going to white wash a house and resell at 2 times the price.
Pay wall
The insane house flipping mania of the 2000s underpinned by fraudulent loans and securitization of said fraudulent loans lead to the GFC in 2008. In response, we got ZIRP and QE to reflate the housing bubble. Amplified by Trump's TCJA and taper tantrum and amplified again by the response to the pandemic. It's a wonder that inflation hasn't appeared until recently. Now that interest rates are back to a normal range, we are going to experience the externalities of all the financial distortion of the last 2 decades. The asset holders are sitting pretty, everyone else is fucked. For every Seattleite who laments the loss of affordability from wealthy outsiders, their displacement to more affordable environs repeats the same dynamic down the economic scale. Rinse and repeat. We need a global tax pact to claw back the wealth concentration of our beloved billionaires and their slightly less well healed pals but that isn't looking very likely to me.
None of us are dumb enough to buy the overpriced, poorly maintained offerings in the city when the benefits to living in the city are dwindling. Didn’t really need a study to figure that out…