About a week ago, Melissa and I gained mutual acceptance on a contract for a house. We’d been in the market for some time, but had either lost out on other houses or been uninterested in making an offer. After about two dozen open houses (no exaggeration), the stars aligned, and we found our Seattle home for the foreseeable future.

The market here is definitely… different. If a house isn’t a complete shamble, it will be under contract in less than a week and go for more than the list price. There is a significant amount of pent up buying demand, partly due to the robust job market, so there is little chance of being the only offer on a house. Inspecting a house before you make an offer (because people are idiotic enough to make an offer with no inspection contingency) and including an escalation clause is commonplace. Suffice to say, one cannot be timid if they intend to purchase a home.

Sooo… the house. It’s a 79 year old tudor-style single family home in the Magnolia neighborhood. The architecture buffs will note it’s not true tudor, in the English farmhouse style, but it does feature steeply pitched roofs and tall, narrow windows. For the non-architecture buffs, it’s a 1,700 sq ft* home with two bedrooms, 1.5 baths, a one car garage, and lots of “charm” [*including unfinished basement, excluding garage]. Wait, what? Only two bedrooms? Only 1.5 baths? Yup. What we liked about this house is it’s move-in ready for our needs and yet has all the makings of a four bedroom, three bath, without the upfront cost. We can add beds and/or baths as we need, or we can just keep on living. We’ve always talked about owning a home that requires a bit of work… I’m not sure this qualifies… but it’s a home we take a sledgehammer to and upgrade if we ever see fit.

Perhaps the best part about the house is it’s the same suburbs-in-the-city neighborhood we like and we managed to find one that’s closer to downtown with a view. I’ll shave five minutes off my commute and we can now rely on three bus routes to get in/out of the city versus one. The pictures don’t show it very well, but you can see the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound from the top floor. What’s not shown is you can actually see the snow-capped peaks of the Olympics from the ground level too, including the (now) master bedroom. The downside for access and views is we’re on somewhat of an arterial – we think it’s worth the tradeoff.

The only work that really “needs” to happen is to redo the kitchen. While it’s true the kitchen doesn’t look in too bad of shape, the appliances are probably as old as we are. We’ll likely replace them before we move in and then gut/redo the kitchen when we can afford it in a few years. Next on the wish list would be to add a bathroom upstairs, so we can move the master up there. I think we’ll both see our 40th birthday come and go well before that’s even a serious discussion. Then, after we win the lottery, we’re going to add a second bedroom upstairs, finish the basement, and replace the back windows with french doors that open onto our awesome deck. What’s the Powerball at these days?

If all goes well, we’ll get the keys June 13th. We’re in our lease until July 31st, so we’ll use the time in between to get everything settled (e.g. appliances, utilities, etc.) and then move the last weekend in July. You’re all invited to the housewarming BBQ in August so we’ll see you there!

 

Last week, we decided to throw our hats into the Seattle housing ring by putting an offer on a house. We’d just seen it for the first time earlier in the day, but the pace of the market dictates you move quickly if you see something you like. The bad news is we didn’t get the house. The good news is we had to wait less than 24 hours to find that out.

The house itself was a 2,000 sqft single family home a few minutes away from where we current live. It was at the very tip top of our budget and could probably use $50k-$75k worth of work; we went after it because of the three rules of realty: location, location, location. It’s in one of the most sought after neighborhoods in the city, was close to many bus lines (read: shortening my already short commute), and had a good layout with a decent yard. Oh, and it actually had a garage and space for a king size bed… two things hard to find in our price range here.

In the end, we lost the house because we listed 45 days to close versus what has become the norm of 30 days. We couldn’t do 30 days due to down payment and vacation logistics, so I guess you could say it wasn’t meant to be. We weren’t able to get toooooo invested given the short timelines, but we were obviously still bummed. That offer, the first one we’ve done here… and first one in eight years… was a symbol of many things.

I’m nervous, but optimistic, we’ll be able to find something in our budget and with a lot of our wish list in the next month or two.