Adventures in Househunting

One weekend Glenn and I thought it would be fun to run around Downtown Seattle and check out condos in the area. It was free and fun, so it sounded like a good plan. What started as harmless fun turned into quite an adventure that is going to cost a lot of money! We found a really cool place Downtown called the Escala, but it came with a pretty hefty price tag. After a while it seemed that we had both agreed that now was probably a good time for us to start seriously looking at houses.

It's a buyer's market right now and because of that, the state of Washington is offering some really great incentives to get first time home buyers into their first houses. We attended a 5 hour class a couple weekends ago and learned all the ins and outs of loans and the process of buying a home and now we are qualified to get a really great rate on a loan.

Our home search initially began in Downtown, but we weren't going to find any houses there. We wanted a private space all to ourselves, with no shared walls, and a space for the dog to play and just be a dog in. Capital Hill is obviously a no-go. The prices there are absolutely through the roof! We extended our search North and didn't have any luck in Queen Anne, where home prices are pretty similar to Capital Hill. So we pushed further North again. Ballard and Wallingford are very popular neighborhoods just packed full of beautiful homes, but that great neighborhood also comes with a big price tag. Again, we pushed further North. This time we ended up in one of my very favorite neighborhoods in Seattle, Greenwood. There is a lot of charm here and a lot of adorable houses and the prices are a bit less because of the distance from Downtown. The very first house we looked at, I fell in love with. It is absolutely adorable and very well restored. Only problem is it was just a bit bigger than 700sf. Seeing that we live in a 450sf studio, anything bigger is better. Glenn and I just didn't really feel the price per square foot was really worth it so we started to think of our other options.

Now it looks like going North isn't really going to fit our needs and fit into our budget at the same time, so we started to go South. Going South of Downtown Seattle is very interesting. There are lots of unique neighborhoods, but not every bit of them is very nice. We began looking in Beacon Hill. The North part of Beacon Hill is actually quite nice, and priced pretty fairly, but we weren't finding a lot that we really liked. Then we found some places in Mid-North Beacon Hill. They were priced at a place where we were comfortable, but then the guts of the houses were another story. Apparently at our price point, we were mostly looking at fixers. I found this a bit odd, because let's be honest; there are nice little pockets of Beacon Hill, but then the rest is pretty ghetto. I don't get it. We found houses we liked, but they needed a lot of work. On top of all that, we found ourselves scratching more and more of our priorities off our list just to stay in Seattle. Things just weren't making senses anymore.

We kind of felt like we were at a stand still. Should we wait until maybe something good pops up, or is that even going to happen? Then Glenn suggested we look in Tacoma. After all, the places we were looking at demanded a 40-45 minute commute via bus for him to get to work and Tacoma would only tack on 20 minutes or so. A preliminary search online quickly showed me that we could get pretty much everything we were looking for in a house at a much MUCH better price in Tacoma. Plus, we have a handful of friends out there already. I even feel like my job search could be more fruitful there. The school district there seems to have a lot of open jobs that I could be really good at. It was definitely worth a shot.

We gathered up a handful of houses that we would like to see and sent them to our real estate agent, Dave. He's a really good guy. We asked him to just let us do our thing and for him to just take us to the houses we wanted to see. That's exactly what he does, and we love it. He works in Seattle, and more so in the Northern part so we were really grateful that he was more than willing to take us out to Tacoma. The first house we went to was an absolute joke and the second house told me I was done looking. I fell in love instantly. I didn't say anything to Glenn until we were done because I wanted to see how he reacted. We were on the same page. It was almost like I didn't even care about the other houses we saw. The second one was it for me. I couldn't stop thinking about it!

Later that night after talking it over and staring at the pictures, we decided to make an offer. We met up with Dave that night and signed the papers! It was so exciting and scary at the same time! Dave was awesome and he explained every part of the offer to us, and left nothing unsaid. I really appreciated that, because it all kind of seems like a foreign language to me! That was Saturday night. He said they would have until Monday (today) night to respond. While Glenn and I were at lunch today he called and said the accepted our offer! Yay!

The only problem is that the bank is actually set to foreclose on the house this Friday. Because this is a short sale, the negotiator is trying to get the bank to allow an extension for the short sale. If this happens, it means we are in pretty good standing and that the bank will most likely accept our offer, but who knows when. If they don't allow the extension, then we pretty much have to start all over again. The bank will foreclose the house, do a bunch of paperwork, re-list it at a higher price, then who knows after that. Hopefully the bank doesn't want to put all that effort into it and accepts our offer!

So, my friends, that is where we stand right now. This is an extremely exciting part of our life! I can't wait to see what happens. Also, for your personal enjoyment I have provided links to the albums of pictures taken at each walk-through.

Albums:
106 N 8oth St - This is the house in Greenwood (North of Seattle.) It is absolutely adorable and so charming. The neighborhood is great and the house was well maintained. There are lots of wonderful details inside the house. Biggest drawback was the price and small size of the house.

2918 23rd Ave S - This was the first house in Beacon Hill (South of Seattle) that we looked at. It was pretty cute from the outside. It had LOADS of potential, but for the price we weren't willing to put as much effort and work into it as needed. The people who lived in it had some very questionable taste.

3110 Harris Place S - Another house in Beacon Hill. This house was pretty unassuming from the outside but it had a stellar view in the back. The inside of the house was really frustrating and awkward. It had very little flow to and from the rooms. It was very clear that this was NOT the house for us.

4532 10th Ave S - Of all the houses so far, this one needed the least amount of work. It's location was not nearly as good as the other places we looked and we would pretty much give up everything that was important to us if we were to choose this house. The ceilings were strangely low. The biggest drawback from this house, aside from its not-so-great location, was the fact that it had this weird disheveled 2nd unit attached on the side. It would most definitely need to be demolished.

3419 N 22nd St - This was the very first house we looked at in Tacoma. It's in a fantastic neighborhood. The description we read online was that it was a fixer, but we didn't know how much to expect. Just look at the pictures and you will certainly understand why this was definitely not the house for us either.

1503 S 9th St - The second house we looked at in Tacoma that turned out to be our favorite and the one we made an offer on. The people living here are in the process of packing, so there was stuff everywhere, but it was so easy to envision ourselves here. I just LOVE it!

816 S Ainsworth - It didn't take much to realize that we weren't going to be interested in the third house in Tacoma. The neighborhood was a little sketchy and the house was not well maintained at all. Everything inside looked to be cheap and poorly constructed. The house was a great price though, at a whopping 80K!

2002 S 8th St - This house isn't far from our favorite house. I would definitely say this one is my 2nd favorite. It was really cute inside and well maintained. It had a great backyard as well, and I liked the neighborhood. The biggest concern I had was that it was located on the corner of a busy street. While the landscaping did a good job of blocking out the noise, the idea of being so close to traffic was just a bit unnerving.