The prices here in Seattle are overpriced for what you get. Most homes in Seattle either don’t have a garage or have a one car garage compared to the other towns where you might have a 2 car or 3 car garage and a circular driveway. The typical yard in Seattle is about 5000 sq. feet. This is pretty small definitely compared to DC and still relatively small for the Beach communities in Los Angeles and the Silicon Valley in the San Francisco/San Jose Area. Nice to have enough space to set up a swing set for the kids and have a place for the dog to run around.

The job situation in Seattle is good but doesn’t have nearly the job quantity or as many high paying jobs as the Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, or Washington DC. The Silicon Valley is surrounded by the San Francisco Bay are the Pacific Ocean for views. Los Angeles Beach communities from Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Redondo Beach down to Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Marina Del Rey and Dana Point can be just steps to the beach and ocean. Washington DC has views of the monuments and the Potomac River and not too far to the Chesapeake Bay, Annapolis, Saint Michaels or to the Beachs on the Atlantic such as Ocean City or Virginia Beach. So, Seattle, in my view, should have at best similar trends to any of these other cities for real estate. The market went way up in Los Angeles, Washington DC, and the Silicon Valley. Seattle went up too, but not as crazy as the previous ones mentioned. Silicon Valley and Los Angeles have limited space for building new construction. A bigger issue in either of these towns than in Seattle, since in Los Angeles to find a home that is affordable, you either have to live in a dangerous area or commute up to 100 miles each way from a desert community such as Victorville or Apple Valley or Lancaster. The Silicon Valley people commute all the way out from Stockton California, Tracy, Modesto or Merced, to work in San Jose, Fremont or Palo Alto/Menlo Park/Mountain View to find affordable housing. Houses in the silicon valley are typically 1.2 Million dollars and up to buy a 2bdrm/1ba. home. But for that kind of money, you can easily get a job paying well over a hundred thousand a year with stock options but find out that the cost of living is so high that this is still not enough money to be comfortable.

Enough of my gripes, Seattle is beautiful. The mountains and water views are everywhere. The city view is also spectacular. Some of the best qualities of Seattle are the clean air, clean water, some inexpensive seafood, and no air conditioning electic bill for the summer months.

We are looking to buy a house but are holding off until the prices stabilize. All of the other cities I have lived in have had price adjustments. Seattle will be no exception. All markets go up in price get too high, drop some and then stabilize for a while until there is a reason for the market to either go up or down from that point. I believe that the market will drop some and then stabilize at the new value for a while until all of the subprime loans, Adjustable Rate Loans, Flipper Investors, are weeded from the market and the overall economy has a real reason for growth such as the next Microsoft, Nordstrom, or Starbucks…

Here you go…

Tim did an entire post on density a while back, comparing Seattle to other major cities. Use the search function.

This is so bizarrely inaccurate. Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually visited Seattle?

do you have some stats to back that up? seems off kilter to me

Gardens or yards don’t exist in Seattle metro anymore

Actually, I think Seattle is about the lowest population density (highest % SFH) of any major metro area in the country.

Wha?? Maybe they don’t in the new townhouse canyons of Ballard, but there still are plenty of ‘em in the city limits.

And for the folks who don’t have a patch of ground to work on their own, how about that PPatch program? Thirty-plus years and still going strong, now with 50+ locations…

My husband and I were PPatch gardeners for years before we had a yard to call our own. It’s a terrific program. In fact, I’d nominate the PPatch program as emblematic of Seattle’s most special attributes.

Gardens or yards don’t exist in Seattle metro anymore.

In the end, this is the place where I make my home.

The beer fest? (which reminds me, our beer scene is GREAT)….

I visited some friends in Cleveland around Christmas and they commented that they missed the variety of quality microbrew beers available out here. Very few bars in the midwest have anything but the Miller/Bud/Coors macrobrews.

Better add defense spending. In the 80s Boeing was about a 20% defense employment base. Today, Boeing has a 50% defense employment base.

Without defense spending, will the last one turn off the lights. I imagine local Microsoft sales is similarily related, like to defense businesses buying MSFT software needs in Seattle.

Manufacturing all went east.

Go try and live in Los Angeles or the midwest or the south or the north east and then come back and tell us how much Seattle sucks.

Matthew – If your SAD then maybe the midwest or eastcoast would be better for you. My parents live in Boston and it is miserable….We call it “Bittah Cold” and it is really bad…Plus you gotta pay for OIL to heat your house there…

Also, Look at these sick base levels…
Alpental at Snoqualmie 91-108 in

I can get to the Double Black Diamonds in under 30 Minutes…

I’d suggest that just about everyone who works indoors in Seattle go have their D levels checked.

I would take a bonechilling freezing day with bright sunshine before I would take a dark, damp, 42 degree overcast day.

I’d rather be outside with a jacket and a flashlight than stuck inside admiring the sunshine, unable to actually be in the sunshine because my face would freeze within 15 seconds of stepping out the door. To each their own, though. ;-)

Sorry, Vancouver (BC) has exclusive rights to that category in this region.

“About 10 percent of Seattle-area residents suffer from a severe case of SAD during the shortest days of the year and have thoughts that life isn’t worth living, says David Avery, a psychiatry and behavioral sciences professor at the University of Washington. As many as 20 percent more residents sleep longer in winter, have trouble waking and exhibit lower energy.

In northern climates from Scandinavia to Canada, the lack of sunlight during the shortest days of the year has been linked to increased rates of depression, suicide and alcoholism. Seattle is located at 47 degrees latitude, closer to the North Pole than Toronto or Boston. ”

Plissken,

I’ve lived all over the U.S. (midwest, northeast, south, west coast) and visited Asia, Europe, and South America, and yes while the weather here can be deemed as not very extreme, the lack of sunshine is downright depressing.

I would take a bonechilling freezing day with bright sunshine before I would take a dark, damp, 42 degree overcast day.

A million dollar home in Olympia had a landslide in December 2007 and is a total loss. It is now condemned as unsafe to live in. This is a result of the heavy rains we had recently.

ARTICLE FROM “THE OLYMPIAN” — Before he put his $1 million, 2,600-square-foot waterfront “dream house” on the market last summer, Bob Hyde spent $250,000 on new hardwood floors, kitchen tile, a new balcony and a paint job. But the morning of Dec. 3, when Hyde awoke after a night of heavy rain, he found his investment slipping away into the bay.

http://www.theolympian.com/news/story/300391.html

The owner still has the house for sale on Zillow for $500K. Buyer beware! Under “What the Owner Loves about this house” it says this: “House virtually destroyed in December landslide. Will consider offers on land.”

http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=49414098

Landslide links to check out:

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/landslides/

http://www.dnr.wa.gov/geology/pugetls.htm
http://www.cses.washington.edu/cig/outreach/classes/585/files/IK_whitepaper.pdf

I’ll give you the landslides (although I’m not sure how bad it really is). Volcanoes and quakes have nothing to do with the weather though.

Actually one of my favorite comments by one of my friends around here was, “THANK GOD FOR THE WEATHER!” and I think thats so true. I think the fact that the weather can be pretty glum is one of the few factors keeping people from flocking here.

Ray Pepper
Broker
http://www.500Realty.net

You forgot about landslides, volcanoes, and of course, those pesky earthquakes. We live in the most seismically dangerous place in the contiguous United States.

Smug homeowners are, by far, our most special quality.

All in all I think Seattle has great people and great resources all around. But frankly I think that can be found nearly anywhere. At least here in the PNW we get a slice of each season and without weather that could kill us with the extreme hots or colds. Not bad really.

Our winters are mild enough that my bills for a properly insulated SFH stay under $130 / month (that’s gas AND electricity).

Summers can be beautiful and bearable all at the same time (nothing that 2 or 3 fans strategically placed cannot handle).

We’re not at risk for a major drought. No hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes. The big storm we got last year is pretty much as bad as it gets and that was the worst it got in 15 years or so.

Sure, there might be stuff to complain about but the weather ain’t it.

What can influence the market is an over abundance of intrusive building regulations. It’s an artificial growth limiter, making many buidable lots artificially unbuilder, or to expensive to build on.

i.e. cannot subdivide large parcels, excessive wetland setbacks, overly restrictive septic requirements adding 20k of costs onto development, et cetera.

I think “running out of land” really has some merit for King County especially – with all of the “improve my property values since I am already in” land use restrictions and the geographical features – water and mountains. Yet I sense it was put in the poll as a joke.

Pretty sure it is a joke. I think Seattle has one of the lowest urban population densities of any major city. Thus the mayor’s recent changes in height limits, etc. Lots more opportunity for infill, rezoning, etc than most places.

Water in the lakes, water in the Sound, water in the sky, water on the road, water squishing underfoot in my lawn, water tracked into the house and car, water, water, everywhere, and not a drop of sun!!

West LA is certainly as safe as Seattle. Since moving here, I’ve met more people directly affected by crime (break-ins, car theft) than I did in LA. This is, of course, a very personal perspective and might not extrapolate well.

Mind fixing that?