New Buyer

[Ubersalad]

At least you're not looking at outskirt burbs like Issaquah/North Bend. These areas will be hard to sell.

[crucifiction]

I agree with most everything on here. My advice to anyone moving anywhere is do not buy right away (unless you've lived in the area before). I have lived in several places all over the country and I know for sure I would have regretted buying a place in most of the first rental areas I had. Everyone has different tastes of location so trusting a realtor or friend to tell you where to buy is a bad idea. You need to know first hand and the only way to do that is to live somewhere for about a year. The only time it makes sense to just buy anywhere when moving is during insane appreciation times (e.g. 2004-2007) where you can make out even or better on a sale if you don't like the area. In this climate, even if depreciation stops, there is no way you are going to sell and break even when including transaction costs.