By The Tim on April 12, 2009
Please vote in this poll using the sidebar.
Which is more important to you?
- Living in the nicest house you can afford. (12%, 19 Votes)
- Living in the nicest neighborhood you can afford. (88%, 146 Votes)
Total Voters: 165
This poll will be active and displayed on the sidebar through 04.18.2009.
Posted in Polls | Tagged Polls
Tim Ellis is the founder of Seattle Bubble. His background in engineering and computer / internet technology, a fondness of data-based analysis of problems, and an addiction to spreadsheets all influence his perspective on the Seattle-area real estate market.
This one is easy for me. Neighborhood hands down.
Your neighbors do affect you–something I learned the hard way. When we were looking two years ago, a big plus was a neighborhood that had a strong functioning HOA. City government simply doesn’t do enough around here to keep bad owners in line.
Also, I’m just not that into houses. So getting the nicest house just isn’t that big of a priority, if by nice you mean more expensive, stainless appliances, granite counters, etc. However, it you mean nicest design, that makes it a bit tougher. For example, we had a listing in the Nottingham area of Edmonds that was a fantastic design that was the result of at least one major remodel. I called it a split-level rambler–it was a very unique house, but the design really worked. I’ve never had buyers linger in an open house the way they lingered there. Anyway, something like that, or a nicely preserved 1910 larger home would have some appeal. But mainly it’s neighborhood.
I don’t know how to answer this question. Because while I can afford a pretty nice house and can afford to live in a pretty nice neighborhood, living in the “best I can afford” has no appeal. I prefer to not have all my money sucked into living expenses, and enjoy being able to play golf, travel, etc.
AHH. Nice house or neighborhood?…..easy answer for most… neighborhood..not me though. HOME is the ANSWER.
I already have a nice neighborhood. Put me in this Condo on top of the 15th floor (secure building) and you can put me in a neighborhood with bad neighbors. I just won’t come out.
Lock me in ….like in the movie Quarantine—————–not with those neighbors though….
Floor 15: ME–penthouse style
Floor 14: Safeway
13: Thai Kitchen
12: Wendy’s
11: Dicks
10: Pagliacci
9: El Pollo Loco
8: Boston Market
7: Galaxy Cinema
6: Casino–Peppermill style like in Reno
5: Swensens Ice Cream
4: Library
3: Sports Bar
2: Togo’s/Port of Subs
1: Gym with pool, track, Spa
(no particular order)
Happy Easter to all!
Actually, I want a nice house in a nice neighborhood. In non-bubble times my salary would allow for that.
I suppose if I was less picky I could find a place in a seedy area to live in and build a really nice house there. But then my wife and kid could never leave the house and I would constantly worry about security.
Kary – some HOA can make life hell for people. A good neighborhood should not need one.
This is a tough one and exactly what I am currently debating. We have our eye on two properties at the moment. Both have the same price tag but one is a 3 bedroom and the other has 2 bedrooms and a slightly nicer home in a nicer neighborhood. Since we technically only need 2 bedrooms, we only have one child,we would be fine but a third bedroom would be nice as a guest room/ office. I live down in Tacoma where I am seeing prices are more flexible than Seattle. Thanks to Seattle Bubble I didn’t buy in 2007 but have been watching and waiting. Houses I couldn’t have touched are now available to me. Boy am I getting antsy at this point.:)
Neighborhood, definitely. But “nicest” didn’t mean most expensive and upscale. It means no HOA so we can paint our house the color we want and put up a basketball hoop. It means on a circle so there is no traffic. It means in a stable neighborhood where people stay put for years. It means near a lake to walk around. It means having a nice big yard and a view. The fact that we all have 80’s style tract houses is pretty much irrelevant to us compared to all that.
Isn’t “location, location, location” the Realtor’s mantra?
Location for me. Best school district, proximity to freeways yet quiet, view, and plenty of parks to walk.
Location is key, because a house can be built anywhere, yet location is unique.
I’m somewhere in the middle on this. What is a nice neighborhood to some is horrible to others. For example, Medina is a “nice” neighborhood, but I’d feel completely out of place there and probably wouldn’t get along with the neighbors ( Sorry, Bill.)..
But I also wouldn’t want to live in a crime ridden or very densely populated neighborhood, or one populated entirely by toothless hillbillies….
And having been involved in a few too many houses that needed repairs/remodels, a nice house that doesn’t need any work is a nice thing.
So, I don’t need a neighborhood full of wealthy people or one full of pretentious hipsters, but I want a neighborhood that’s convenient to the city , shopping and restaurants, and is safe and quiet…Since the kids are old and gone, school district isn’t a huge concern.
The only thing I’d really care about location is the potential for price appreciation, which means that to a certain extent I’m at the mercy of what neighborhoods other people think is a good location.
On the other hand, I would just like a house that meets my needs. Not the “nicest house I can afford”. I’d move from renting apartments to a condo near downtown resources, but I need a garage for a pile of junk I’ve got, an air compressor and a small pile of T-cylinders of oxygen, helium, argon and air (which I don’t currently have, but the major attraction to owning a house would be having enough room in a garage).
So, I don’t want the nicest house I can afford, and I don’t want the nicest location I can afford.
By Ben @ 4:
There are a few stories of bad HOAs, but they are the exception. Many of the bad stories are the result of people moving in and then not liking the existing rules, so I disregard those entirely.
I agree a neighborhood SHOULD not need one, but unfortunately some people are rather messy and/or inconsiderate of their neighbors. Seattle now has more regulations, but I’m not sure how well they work in practice. Before they did next to nothing.
By Emma Anne @ 6:
I had no trouble getting my paint color approved, and my neighbor has a basketball hoop. But I have seen listings that were hard to sell because a neighbor painted their house purple. Since I have no desire to paint my house purple, I’d rather have the protection from that than the freedom to do that.
I disagree on HOA. CCNRs are a good way to keep the neighborhood in check and looking good instead of being decrepit.
By mukoh @ 13:
Without a HOA you’re pretty much looking at litigation to enforce, but that’s better than nothing I guess.
We’re going with “house”. I think “the nicest house you can afford” can be misleading — many people can afford a pretty nice house in a good neighborhood as it is, or a mansion in a crappy neighborhood. For us the dilemma is “squish in in a house in a nice neighborhood” or “live comfortably in a not so nice hood”.
I’m betting that prices will be flat at best for a long while, so we’ll go with a house where we can see our family today and ten years from now,with teenagers. We looked at plenty of houses in nicer neighborhoods, but the truth is, anything we can afford will be a bit tight now and probably intractable with 3 teenagers…
If I’m wrong and we hit rampant inflation with RE partiicipating, my guess is that we’d be able to sell even in a mediocre neighborhood….
It is much easier to fix your home than your neighborhood.
By Kary L. Krismer @ 11:
The problem comes in when you’re forced to either accept HOA terms or live 50 miles out in the boondocks. We don’t have that problem here in King County, necessarily, but there are entire states — Arizona comes to mind — where almost all residential real estate within driving distance of a city is HOA-encumbered. If you want to live in Arizona and you’re not a born desert-dweller, you have essentially no property rights other than the right to assume the financial risks of “ownership.”
Many, if not most, people are fine with that. Not me. Every once in awhile, when I find myself driving through upper Queen Anne, I make it a point to cruise past this place just to remind myself how nice it is when every house in your neighborhood isn’t exactly the same as every other house.
I’d like to think that if I lived next door to that guy, I could probably put up a ham radio antenna or leave my garage door open all day Sunday without catching any grief from him. He could expect the same from me. That’s a neighborhood. HOAs are for ant colonies.
RE: ElPolloLoco @ 17 – OK, I give up trying to make that link work — see http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Amplius_Eo_03.jpg&oldid=19640483 if interested. :-P
RE: ElPolloLoco @ 17 – I’d agree there should be choice. Not all people are cutout for HOAs. Although there are a lot of HOAs that are non-functioning locally. I’d suspect the same is true in those other states you mentioned.
Neighborhood hands down. I grew up in southern ca in a pretty crappy neighborhood. Until you know what a crappy neighborhood can bring: drugs, gangngs, crap neighbors, pit bulls it goes on and on you can’t realize the importance.
My family still lives in that neighborhood cause its home, this place is bliss and I am thankfull every day we can relax in a quiet area, walk the bluff on a nice day with the dogs. You can’t put a value on it to me. If you told me I paid 100k extra to have those features, I would say npo problem its worth it. So that’s my answer.
Now not to say magnollia is perfect, there are certainly people here who would fit into my old neighborhood but they are few and far between rather than the norm.
My current situation is the very definition of neighborhood over house. Of the ~1000 homes on the north end of Mercer Island, the place I’m renting has to be amongst the 20 least desirable. It’s a 948 sq ft bungalow with minimal updates and just about zero curb appeal. Fortunately it has a bigger than average yard, and a couple of great views of the lake and Olympics. But I can walk to any one of 5 parks (2 on Lake Washington) in 10 minutes or less, can walk to a coffee shop or grocery store in 15 minutes, and the combination of big prop tax revenues and active community associations creates a stream of local egg hunts, concerts and plays in the parks, fairs, parades, half-marathons, and other local events.
If there was a single adequately sized SFH on Mercer Island for sale right now that I could afford, I’d buy it, even though that same money would probably buy something more than twice as big and with much nicer trim elsewhere in the area. There isn’t, so I’m looking in the neighborhoods next on my list. I’ll take a modest home in a great neighborhood every time over a swank pad in a mediocre area.
Are you implying that the nice home must be in a dumpy neighborhood? I think a great house in a good nieghbordhood beats a bad house in a great neighborhood.
Ie. I’d take a great house in Bothell over a dumpy house in Queen Anne, but wouldn’t take a great house in So. Seattle over a bad house in Queene Anne.
This is my first ever post that has the primary purpose of disagreeing with Kary (normally I think your posts are pretty right on), but HOA is exactly my definition of a bad neighborhood — sterile cookie cutter homes. It basically makes the entire neighborhood into a townhome/condo complex (i.e. no real freedom of ownership) without the price/maintenance efficiencies that a townhome brings. With townhome/condo I agree that a good HOA is important but in that case it is to properly manage the common expenses and maintenance. In a single family home neighborhood the HOA is just the abdication of freedom to a small group of busybodies who need a sense of pupose and power.
Now for the answer to the poll: my weighting would be 70% neighborhood / 30% quality of home. So I wouldn’t by a dump in the perfect neighborhood, nor would I buy the perfect home at the expense of living 30+ miles from work. But I would be a little more flexible on the house quality in order to have a good neighborhood (i.e. close to work and good schools, quiet but convenient, variety of construction, no cookie cutter homes and no HOA).
RE: ElPolloLoco @ 17 – While the behavior of ants may look like the result of highly organized central control, it really is the result of emergent behavior.
HOAs are there to keep things like street lights, landscaping, monument, etc… in place BTW. Those light poles that people see inside a subdivision are not paid by utility district, they are paid by HOA.
HOAs also maintain rules such as a neighbor is not going to park 5 cars in their driveway for months on end fixing them. Do you want that in your neighborhood?
This whole non conformity that reeks through a lot of times is exactly what HOAs are there to prevent.
Regarding HOAs…
One of the funniest (and possibly the most notorious) HOA a**-kickings ever…truly one of a kind.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1908540/king_of_hancock_park/
RE: mukoh @ 25 – The problem is, they never stop with, “Come on, be reasonable, who wants to look at 5 rusty Camaros on blocks in your driveway?” FIrst it’s “No, you can’t have 5 cars on blocks,” then it’s “No, you can’t have more than 3 cars, and they have to be working.” Then it’s “No, you can’t park any cars in your driveway at all. That’s what your garage is for.” Then it’s, “No, you can’t paint your garage door and porch trim a different color.” And finally, it’s “Trish Tanaka reporting onscene here in Yuppie Hollow, where a resident apparently entered his homeowners association’s monthly meeting and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing 6 and incurring substantial property damage to windows and drywall.”
Now why is it the I knew Kary and Mukoh would be fans of HOA,
Kary, where did you come up with data to prove this tidbit “There are a few stories of bad HOAs, but they are the exception. ” How do you know they are the EXCEPTION?
Mukoh, this made me laugh “This whole non conformity that reeks through a lot of times is exactly what HOAs are there to prevent.” yeah who wants non conformity we should all be just a like who cares about being individual.
Count me out on the HOA.
I’ll never forget the time I was fined by a Condo HOA for replacing the O2 sensor in my truck. Took about 5 minutes to unplug the old one, unbolt it, and install the new one. Of course this was more than enough time for some ninny to see me and report me to the board.
You seen, the problem with HOAs are not the HOAs themselves, but what they do to the small, small people who need power to feel OK. And those people, needless to say, are everywhere.
No thanks.
b @ 16 nailed it.
No thanks on a HOA for me. If someone wants to work on 5 cars in their driveway, that’s their business. After all, it’s their driveway. At least here in Lake Hills, the city codes cover the basics and that’s enough for me. My neighborhood apparently feels the same since they voted their own HOA out of existence years ago. Surprise, it’s not full of purple houses and broken down cars. Just people living their lives without having to get approval from their neighbors for doing things on/to their own property.
My suggestion, rent a place that has a HOA. Then, make your decision. I am renting a condo. It is cheaper than an apartment. But, I will now never buy a condo or ever buy a place that has a HOA. That is my choice, it is right for me, others will come to their own conclusion.
My mother did have her house painted purple, and she is a previous Seattle Poet Laurette.
I went with best neighborhood but that doesn’t mean “best” in terms of most expensive. It’s best for me based on what I want. Mostly a large yard (for gardening) and walkability to groceries, restaurants, and bus lines. Especially bus lines to work…
I prefer to live in a house that I like, and is an acceptable neighborhood, and is *less* than I can afford.
I don’t want to work for my house, I want my house to work for me.
I got reported several times in the 2 years I lived in an Indiana HOA neighborhood. Good in principle, but anytime you give a group of people power with no checks and balances, it will be abused. My car got reported several times (granted, it was a POS, but it ran and was daily driven when I was in town), and a couple neighbors took issue with me working on my cars in the garage. Of course, these were the same assholes that drove 45 MPH through our child-laden neighborhood (I drove 15-20 because I didn’t want to hit a kid and dent my car :) ).
Someone else mentioned it, but it was basically a vessel for stay at home moms to feel important.
Who needs an HOA? These neighbors in Sequim just decided that a paint job was responsible for their declining home values and are petitioning for tax relief.
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20090412/news/304129978
I suppose if you want to live in an neighborhood that emphasizes conformity and uniformity, then HOAs are a good thing. Personally, I prefer places that nurture creativity and eccentricity.
By Ira sacharoff @ 37:
Me too. Life isn’t meant to be beige.
RE: me @ 23 – I’m not so sure what you’re objecting to isn’t simply modern developments, as opposed to HOAs. My HOA is from the late 60s, early 70s and it has none of the cookie cutter issues you mention. That’s really more a function of the original developer, and today a lot of them are going for boxes put in close proximity.
By
Because there are thousands of them (especially if you include condos, which really are HOAs) and most the stories are far flung. The closest I recall is from the Tri-cities area, with the planting grass–person in Iraq, and that was really the developer.
Most people live in neighborhoods that represent their socioeconomic status; and that’s true mostly everywhere in the world. On top of that, Puget Sounders are a pretty uniform bunch.
Now, let’s say you talk about Florida and its very “special” residents; busy intersection of I-4 and I-75 ; private citizen expressing his rights.
http://www.florida-scv.org/Camp1360/Tampa_Flag1.jpg
By the way; I too, take the mediocre house in the safe, nice neighborhood (with good schools).
RE: Ray Pepper @ 3 –
Mukesh Ambani style then?
You guys will be regretting that non-conformity when neighbors start painting their houses colors you don’t like and parking older cars than yours (or, God forbid, even a boat!) in the driveway. I constantly have nightmares of people not being the same as me and having the nerve to show it on their own property.
By anony @ 43:
You’re being sarcastic, right?
2nd house we bought: 1959 daylight rambler in a working-class neighborhood in unincorporated King County on the Eastside. Loved the charm of the home and the big lot—hated the redneck neighbors playing loud music all night, working on cars at 11:00 p.m. and playing basketball at midnight. (These were all different neighbors making noise, not just one family.) No HOA.
3rd house we bought: new small home in large planned development east of Issaquah. Great neighbors, tons of community involvement, great parks and trails, retail within walking distance. I could live there without a car. The schools stink, though. I was back there again last week and took a walk while waiting for my kid to finish a play date. Of the people I encountered, 8 of 8 said hello. HOA pretty active but we survived unscathed.
Current house: smallest house in swank development of McMansions on the Eastside. Very strict HOA and any day we expect to hear from them about the sorry state of our yard. (Gardening’s not our thing and we’ve got no money to pay a gardener right now.) Rudest people you’ll ever meet, they don’t want anything to do with us peons in the tiny house. I take my life into my hands each day just walking across the street to the mailbox, as I could be run over by a Mercedes or Lexus SUV. If I dared to take a walk here, I’d say 0 of 8 people would acknowledge my existence. Hate the place and looking forward to moving, whether by selling or foreclosure remains to be seen.
So I’d have to vote for neighborhood being the most important thing, your house can be remodeled but your neighborhood cannot.
RE: Cheap South @ 41 –
I lived in FL most of my life so I can definitely vouch for our “specialness.” Our neighborhood had an HOA whose members had varying levels of craziness. My favorite incident was when a lady on one of the prime corner lots decided to construct what appeared to be a mini golf course in the yard. There were giant wooden cut outs, brightly colored astroturf patches, and more than a comfortable amount of garden gnomes. I was a kid and thought it was the coolest thing ever and couldn’t comprehend my parents’ negative reaction. I can totally see now how something like that might scare away potential buyers or at least make them run the address through the sex offenders registry!
On the flip side, I remember my parents battling with the HOA about moving our mailbox 2 inches further back into our yard and making sure to repaint it the approved shade of brown.
An HOA is good in theory to keep up the common areas (like our neighborhood had a clubhouse with a pool) but it’s the crazy people that are in your front yard measuring the height of your grass and holding a color swatch up to your mailbox that make people think twice about moving into those neighborhoods.
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 14 –
As a former city planner…. regulations largely rely on voluntary compliance of law abiding citizens and otherwise are only as effective as random enforcement. No city has an abundance of $ for enforcement, and we’ll see how that survives budget cuts . Enforcement actions sometimes ensue from flagrant visible violations, particularly of health safety and welfare issues which governments most care about, but in the vast majority of cases, it’s neighbors contacting local government and turning in their neighbor for either a legit concern to an absolutely pissy personal grudge. In certain sad cases the private sector “enforces” in the form of insurance companies balking at claims. HOAs are as effective as the people in that community, how much they are willing to pay for upkeep expenses or to defer maintenance, and the mental health of people who serve on the boards.
Unfortunately, there’s no title report equivalent of a neighborhood mental health report.
I wonder how the results of this poll would have changed had I added a third choice:
“Living on the nicest plot of land you can afford.”
What some people in the comments above are describing as “neighborhood,” I would attribute more to the plot of land. Views, acreage, etc.
I would never want to live in a neighborhood that could dictate the color I paint my house, style of plants I landscape with, etc. Planned neighborhoods are so boring. It is probably pretty clear what neighborhood I live in…
RE: Jbeans @ 44 –
Jbeans, Yes, it was sarcasm. I probably should have been more clear since I have actually met people who think like that.