You have $900k to buy a home in Seattle. You buy...
- ...a downtown condo. (7%, 20 Votes)
- ...something else. (93%, 255 Votes)
Total Voters: 275
This poll was active 06.10.2012 through 06.16.2012
You have $900k to buy a home in Seattle. You buy...
Total Voters: 275
This poll was active 06.10.2012 through 06.16.2012
Three beach houses in spain, renting them out and staying in one whenever time permits :)
RE: me @ 1 – The question was what “home in Seattle” you would buy. It’s been a long time since I took a geography class, but I’m pretty sure Spain is not in Seattle.
This is a very odd poll. Of course every one would buy something else with $900K.
Even a person who is in the market for a downtown condo would prefer to buy something else for $900K if given a choice.
The fact still remains that in order to do business, even if you think that person is retired, you need to have an address that carries a certain prestige.
OK, you don’t like the idea, but it is exactly why we have a Beverly Hills, and watch TV shows about 90120(?). You need an address of Park Avenue if you have that desire.
It’s nothing personal.
@me
I was thinking the same thing. I have $900,000 to spend? I am so outta here.
I voted something else even though I did buy a condo in downtown Bellevue last summer.
By toad37 @ 5:
That isn’t in Seattle either! ;-)
RE: toad37 @ 5 –
Of the 27 people who bought condos between $850k and $950k in King County in the last 6 months, 14 bought in Seattle, 8 bought in Bellevue and 5 bought in Kirkland.
2 of the 5 in Kirkland were larger than a condo townhome-homes, not attached. Condo due to no separated land parcel. Not sure you would count those two.
All 8 in Bellevue were Lincoln and Bellevue Tower buildings in 98004
Of the14 in Seattle only 6 were Downtown, so more people bought in that price range in “Downtown Bellevue” than in “Downtown Seattle”.
RE: toad37 @ 5 –
Did you go high-rise or low-rise? Do you feel you got a good deal? What would you say are the biggest plusses and minuses of your decision? I am not a realtor; this is not about marketing, and I don’t want to get too into your business. But I am curious.
Tim, your poll is broken; I can’t see the button for “both.”
RE: robotslave @ 9 – Because it’s an hypothetical scenario in which someone offers you up to $900,000 to purchase one home somewhere in Seattle. You get to buy one and only one home, and it must be located in Seattle, and you don’t get to keep the leftover unspent money to use on something else.
Those are the rules of this hypothetical.
I can’t find the “Loshese” button on google translate. Can someone translate and summarize post #3 for me?
if I have 900,000 to spend on a dwelling, it’s not going to be a condo, downtown or otherwise.
900,000 gets you a pretty nice house in Seattle. Maybe I’d buy a house in the North Admiral district or Madison Park…..Can I then sell that and buy four houses in Skyway?
I would enjoy living in a condo downtown in certain circumstances, but given dogs prefer something with a yard.
RE: wreckingbull @ 11 –
There are people who will live downtown, in luxury condos, the same as there are all over the United States, and the world.
It’s just not what you would choose.
There again, as Ira points out, $900K, in anybody’s sand box, can give you a better return if you do something else with the money.
The poll is just odd.
Let me give you some links
http://www.condos305.com/ Miami
http://www.theplaza.com/piedaterre/ New York
http://www.sanfranciscocondomania.com/ San Francisco
http://www.condosatescala.com/ Seattle
I don’t think it’s an odd poll. I think it reveals some about how you rank features of a home which is helpful when you’re back in the lower budget range and need to make a call on what you’re willing to compromise on.
I’ve lived in both house and condo. Both are great in their own way, but I live a healthier lifestyle in a home, easier to go running, etc, so house gets my vote.
Would be interesting to know how many of the 900k plus condo owners are living there as their primary residence because my guess is a notably higher percentage compared to houses are people with homes in multiple locations – for example snowbirds who want the lock and leave ability of a condo.
I would buy Millionnaire Mikes home for the 900k and start a web documentation with a time line of how to blow a 1.5 mill and document every stage of the loss.
I’d get a house with a nice yard and unobstructed view of the sound and olympic mountains.
Many of the well-heeled buyers of these downtown condos live in them during the week and have a second home for weekends, often in the San Juans.
RE: David Losh @ 15 –
David,
Not sure whose site that is advertising Escala in the link you put up. There are two typos in the first sentence. Must be a bottom feeder site. I doubt Escala would have hired writers who can’t spell.
RE: ARDELL @ 20 –
It’s a Windermere site.
With that type of money, I would purchase a home with a view of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains. With our weather – it would make for a most enjoyable view at least one third of the year
How about this, have you done a comparison on costs of owning a $900K house to a condo?
To have a comparable life style it seems to me that having a condo downtown is a better deal. Between landscaping, maintaining, furnishing, the commute, the amenities, like a gym, access to restaurants, cocktail lounges, and social gatherings the cost of the condo seems like it would be cheaper.
Looks like I’ll have alot of SB neighbors, because a home with a sound and mountain view sounds lovely to me, too!
My something else would be this home: http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/1116-Lakeside-Ave-S-98144/home/141220
Lake Washington Waterfront beats Downtown Condo any day.
I’m trying to figure out what this would buy you on North Capitol Hill. When I lived on the Hill and walked to Saint Mark’s, I always thought that when my ship came in (aka never) I’d try to move into the clutch of homes and townhouses north of Roy. The only Active listing I can find below $900K is this 4 BR/1.75 BA with what looks like a good interior, but it’s not my style on the exterior. But everything else is much much more expensive.
PS I hope The Tim doesn’t mind if I use estately instead of redfin :P.
By David Losh @ 23:
And that is why I live on a boat on Lake Union, access to those amenities (within walking distance) and lack of yard maintainance without the high cost, plus I live on the water…
RE: The Tim @ 10 –
Given those constraints, I’d buy a home some where in the U District with a pile of BR’s that I could rent out to students. I’d hire a management company to do the day to day work of renting it out for a cut. I’d take the resulting income (since I’d own the place free and clear) and use that to retire on. Meanwhile, I’d live in my paid off small rambler in south Sno Co.
There….met the letter of your law on this one but expressed my opinion that only a complete dip “steaming pile of bovine solid waste” would blow 900k on a down town condo, especially if they come with enormous HOA dues. Something about a fool and their money parting……
Now if a Person Had Like an Extra $5M Cash in the Bank
They might like the easy living $900K condo style with no yard upkeep, just HOA dues and pay for the condo in cash.
I’m sure this group is a very small minority of the super rich, and like one blogger put it….they’d buy it and live in it as a quasi-vacation home a few weeks or months a year. Spend most of their time at their mansion.
I’m having a really hard time deciding this one. A $900k condo has to be really sweet. And I’m not sure I want the huge house that the $900k would buy me. But then maybe that’s why everyone’s choosing the view, to keep from ending up in the mansion you’d have to deal with for $900k without a view.
Maybe that’s why this is so tough – you’re asking me which is heavier: a ton of rocks or a ton of feathers. Both home options are worth $900k to their prospective buyers, and if I had $900k, I’m the type of person that would consider either.
I’d probably choose the condo, but my wife would probably ask me to choose the house. I usually let her win, so I voted house.
RE: Ira Sacharoff @ 12 –
Slumlord!!! ;)
The Condos have taken on average a much bigger Hit on price… period.
I purchased a condo recently that was a 10 year building.. it sold back in 2008
for 158,000. I purchased it for 60,000. Cash.. no Mortgage no yard work (get to stare at people do that for me) sure it cost me 200. a month HOA and the Utility bills come in around 90.00…
Its 700 feet and it forces me not to buy more stuff… for the long haul I will be much wealthier than the individual that goes out and buys a big house and all the trappings.. this is how you get wealthy you gain control of your finances paycheck which enables you to invest… big house overlooking the water is about Looking Good it doesn’t make you wealthy just the opposite it makes you poor in most cases.
$900k condo?
Taxes + Insurance + HOA = Me working full time, never retiring, just to pay for a free home.
There is no such thing as free home- Taxes Insurance Maintenance isn’t free it doesn’t matter which direction you take there is no such thing as free..
Theres always a cost, you just have to measure which cost you prefer…
Even having someone else paying your mortgage, that isn’t free either just the cost doesn’t take dollars out of your pocket.
even after being Free and Clear on a 900,000. property, Free of Mortgage.. its still going to cost you 9,000. year property tax and insurance and if you have a large place Heating/water maintenance
easily cost 1,200. month for your paid off place… Thats Not Free.
My monthly cost is about 300. property tax Hoa dues.. its at probably the minimum cost of housing. My Hoa dues take care of the maintenance and Garbage.. I laugh when people say thats a lot of money $200. dollars, seriously when/if those same people would sit down and do the math on what there really spending they would in almost 100% cases take back there statement.
Theres always the Duplex where someone else pays for your property, Rentals take work and being a landlord in Seattle, lets just say Renters don’t always work out and it comes at a different sort of cost.. with proper screening etc. you can eliminate a lot of those problems. However it still costs you..
I do agree that many of the Condo associations have crazy dues.. $600. and up is pretty common- in those conditions I would tend to believe and agree with a lot of the statements here about the Hoa Dues..
There Is No Such Thing as Ownership… Its only and idea that the middle class aspire to is doesn’t exist- only thing thats exists is control.
Whether you Rent or Own- The only thing thats different is the Level Of Control.. Renting is just a different level of control with a Limited time frame of Control.
You have $900,000 to buy a home in Seattle. You know the teabag Taliban maniacs, Mad Angela Merkel, Supreme Corp. whores, and Mugabe-like Wall Street job gobblers will demolish the economy with a foam-flecked grin. You avoid gambler banks and house prices resembling the Falling Wallendas, bury $900,000, sew a yurt, and equip it with Gatling guns fore and aft to ward off perma-unemployed zombie armies. You trust, in short, no Seattleite or Seattle institution. It’s over, Seattle. You’re dead meat sizzlin on the griddle.