Thoughts on this place in MLT?
Did a little looking today, both on Redfin and on the street, and found this place in Mountlake Terrace:
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Mountlake-Terr ... me/2672211
The neighborhood is fairly nice, mostly late 1950s to early 1960s, with the houses kept up pretty well. Size looks ok. I'm single, no kids/pets, so a 3br, 1ba, place is fine.
Thoughts?
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Mountlake-Terr ... me/2672211
The neighborhood is fairly nice, mostly late 1950s to early 1960s, with the houses kept up pretty well. Size looks ok. I'm single, no kids/pets, so a 3br, 1ba, place is fine.
Thoughts?
Comments
However, it is described as a having an "avant garde bathroom remodel". Now that is scary.
228th and 44th are pretty heavily travelled roads by people going through Terrace. I would do a full neighborhood review. Check to see how many of the homes surrounding the subject property are rentals.
I would also check the WASL test scores of the public schools. Even if you send your kids to private schools, the neighborhoods with higher scores tend to be more desirable and hold their values.
I'd also recommend checking the Snohomish County Sheriff's office website to see if there are any registered sex offenders living nearby.
One final thought. Terrace is home to many houses we call "blockers." Cinderblock built homes right after WWII for the servicemen coming home from the war. Make sure this one isn't a blocker fixed up pretty with new siding.
You are paying for the lot in that neighborhood at a price of $250K. It is a torch down roof which will need to be monitored and the insulation of the ceiling is done on the roof. What many people do is to is tear off the torch down, insulate in sheets and put on a metal roof.
You're a single guy you can do that yourself, it's a no brainer kind of thing.
Offer $250K see what happens.
As you might surmise, I think a 3BR place is rather ridiculous for a single person.
If you think a marriage is in your future, I'd suggest waiting (renting, saving) until you're ready to make that big purchase together. In my observation relationship dynamics are always thrown off-kilter by one partner moving into the other's territory; it takes an awful lot to transition from "my space" to "our space", particularly if that "my space" is owned.
My $0.02, since you were fool enough to ask for the advice of strangers on the Internet...
You are joking, right? The place is 1100 square feet.
But: "place is fine"? In this market I don't think any of us should have to settle for fine. Wait for either greatness or a total steal for a situation in which you can add some quick equity.
I don't necessarily agree with Angie about a 3br being too much for a single person (my sister has just rented one in Maryland where she will start a new job, and one bedroom will become her office/guest room and another, which is tiny, will become a closet), but I absolutely concur that caution is warranted in case you may be getting married or shacking up within the next few years -- especially considering that prices are still falling. Many of us ladies find financial prudence extremely attractive.
I grew up in a 3-bedroom, 1,288 sqft house, and it never occurred to me that it was too small for our family of 5.
P.S. (In case anyone is wondering, the tax status for the home linked above is listed as "TOTAL EXEMPTION" because the county bought my parents out of the place last year to build some road improvements. The house itself doesn't even exist anymore--they disassembled it and sent all the parts to local re-use stores.)
Yes but I think that's changing. The smaller home is becoming a lot trendier, and very large homes are sitting on the market unsold. ...But only a couple of years ago the most sought after thing was the 3000+ sq ft home on a tiny lot.
Well in Guatamela, people live 10 to a hut, so how dare Americans demand even their own tiny slum apartment all to themselves...
I grew in a very small house, but never noticed it probably because we spent so much time out in the backyard. However, the weather is much better in the Bay Area, so I can't really blame people here for wanting a bigger house since they have to spend so much more time inside it.
In fact the basement is 600 more feet of finished space, with an additional bedroom and 3/4 bath down there...but since we're doing totally fine up here with the space we've got we rent it out and it takes another big chunk out of our already low housing costs.
(We also have offstreet parking and a huge backyard with flowers, herbs, a veggie garden, lovely mature fruit trees, and lots of lawn for the kids.)
I love how the culture of this blog decries exorbitant housing prices, but then people assert that it's reasonable for one single person to live in a 3 bedroom house on an 8,000 square foot lot. Ooookay.
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/dc/look ... son-083273
Granted, it's in Paris...
The discussion that followed was pretty interesting too, for different perspectives on how much space people need to live.
Not at all. You ever live 1 person for every 500 sq ft? Do that with one guy/gal, and you're talking a cramped studio. Do it with a family of 4-5, and you're looking at very comfortable living conditions. The difference is that every living space except bedrooms and bathrooms scale well as more people are added to a home, and you only need about 150-250 sq ft worth of bedroom/bathroom per person to be quite comfy.
It takes about 600 sq ft just to do a kitchen/living room/dining room. In a real sense, 750 sq ft for one person is about as comfortable as 1000 sq ft for 2, 1250 sq ft for 3 or 1500 sq ft for 4.
Sure, 1100 sq ft for a single is too much space, but 4000 for a family is grossly oversized...unless you're the Osbourns or something. If you want a fair comparison, 1100 sq ft for one is more like 2600 for 5. Both sound pretty roomy to me, but not embarrassingly large.
What immediately comes to my mind about families and single people living in either too small or too large a home are my experiences where I grew up on Capitol Hill. Some of the homes near the St. Joes and Holy Names Academy schools bordered by Highland Drive, Aloha to 23rd ave E. are enormous---something like 6000 Sq ft + in many cases. When I was growing up on the Hill in early-mid 70's, we had large Catholic families with 6,7, 11 siblings living in these large homes. When I left for college the dynamic changed dramatically.
In my mild defensiveness about being a space hog, I want to add that the equation is often different for apartments vs. houses. We live in an apartment and have a storage locker in the basement that's about 20 sf. This means that some proportion of the "floor space" in the apartment is effectively storage space -- a lot of stuff that was in the non-sf-counted basement of our rental house back east is now out of necessity on shelving in the office/computer cave or crammed into clothes closets. If we had the same square footage and a basement (or attic or garage), two bedrooms would feel downright roomy.
Yeah if you're really spoiled I guess. I lived with 5 people to 1100sf and then when I was first married we lived 2 people in 500sf. One person in 500sf would've been just fine.
But the gist of your post is that a person only really needs one room to themselves to feel comfortable. So why would a single guy need a 3 bedroom house? Does a family of 5 need a 15 bedroom house or even a 7 bedroom house?
Both are excessive but only one will get the derogatory label of "McMansion".
2002: 3 people, 763 sq. ft. -> 254 sq. ft. per person
2003: 2 people, 981 sq. ft -> 491 sq. ft. per person
[This was no "cramped studio." It was a nice two-story townhome with two bedrooms and 1.5 baths]
2004-2006: 2 people, 580 sq. ft -> 290 sq. ft. per person
[2 bed, 0.75 bath]
2007-Present: 2 people, 1,000 sq. ft. -> 500 sq. ft. per person
[3 bed, 0.75 bath]
So I still don't get where people are coming from that feel "cramped" with 1,000 sq. ft. for two people.
edit - After re-reading RCC's post, I realized that I mis-read it, and he was saying that one person in 500 square feet by themself would be a "cramped studio," not one guy + one gal with 500 square feet each, which is how I originally read it. Still though, I think you can do a lot with 500 square feet. Check out some of the models they have set up at Ikea, or do a Google search for things like living in small spaces. I still think 500 square feet for one person is totally do-able and not at all necessarily "cramped."
Courtesy of the Four Yorkshiremen.
When I was growing up, two of my best friends were from very large families. My very first best friend was the youngest of six; one of my best friends in high school was the oldest girl in a family of 9 kids.
During my teen years my mother was hospitalized frequently and I ended up living with each of those families for a few months.
The first family (6 kids) lived in a house with an identical floorplan to my grandparents, probably a 700 sf footprint with basement (although the basements in those neighborhoods all flooded every year, no one had a bedroom in the basement). The big family's house had maybe a 400 sf addition on the back. So, 8 people (9 with me, for a while!) in probably 1100 sf of actual living space.
The second family, 9 kids...hard to say how big their house was, I didn't know it as well, but I doubt it was much more than 2000 sf, if that. I remember when I stayed there that there were more beds per room in this house than the previous, three or four per room, whereas the previous family typically had two beds per room.
Although I was an only child this must have had an impression on me...since I'm the kind of mean mama who makes her young children share a room! With a bunk bed! I'm sure my daughters will be hashing this out with a therapist for years, somewhere down the road.
Sounds about right.
One bedroom to sleep in, one bedroom to raise baby harp seals and one to club them to death in.
So what's everybody's problem?
Just to clarify, I agree you can do a lot with a few hundred square feet with the right floor plan. I just haven't seen that "right" floor plan anywhere in this area. Frankly, most of the homes and especially the apartments appear to have been designed by someone with a GED in architecture. Maybe it's the same guy who designed our freeways. If the space is truly well designed, I would revise my estimates down to the lower end (<150 sq ft per person and perhaps 300 sq ft of "shared space") for what would still be comfortable for most people.
To answer perfectfire, yes people do feel most comfortable when their home has one or more rooms per person (excluding bathrooms). But, Civil Servant makes a good point that if you have additional non-living space devoted to your other stuff, you can do more with less "living space". For example, if you have a garage to hold your bicycle, tools, outdoor equipment, and similar items you save a lot of living space. My original estimate (500 shared + 250 per person) was based on having no additional space: no yard, no garage, no storage shed, no basement, and no attic.
Also, you can't take away from this any real information about some "right size" because it's always changing. Fifteen years ago, few households had use for an office type space. Now, everyone has a PC and many people telecommute. That requires a little more space. However, we're shifting towards laptops and perhaps even netbooks. This will eliminate the "need" for most families to have an office area.
Finally, I wanted to argue why perfectfire is way off comparing the single with too much space to a McMansion. A 1100 sq ft house is really not that large on most lots. It fits the neighborhood. When it is sold, it is likely the next owner will be able to better utilize the space. In short, putting singles in existing 1100 sq ft homes is not a terrible misallocation of resources at a societal level. The McMansion, however, is not so benign. It crowds other people's lots, and future owners are likely to use it just as wastefully. It makes for an interesting and thought provoking argument, but the two really are not equivalent.
Thanks for (most) of your responses/thoughts. It's been interesting and educational to see your thoughts on rent/buy, 'appropriate' living space, etc. To clarify, I'm single, no kids or pets, no plans to get married (at least not unless I meet a Lady from outside the Seattle metro area). The house I posted the link to doesn't seem all that 'large' (subjective) to me. It is somewhat to the smaller end of house sizes in South Snohomish county. Perhaps a bit more than I absolutely need, but not really 'oversize', either the house or the lot, for a single person. There are few two bed/1 bath places in South SnoCo. There are many nice looking two bed/1 bath places in areas of Seattle (Greenwood, Ballard, Maple Leaf, etc) but I'm not interested in Seattle, or King County (too high a level of taxes and political correctness).
Running rent-vs-buy scenarios shows that, financially, buying isn't much of a gain over renting unless house prices stop falling right now, and appreciation is ~3%+/year for the next several (10+) years, in which it would take several years to break even considering the buy/sell costs.
I think house prices have not yet bottomed out. I don't know how much farther they may decline, 10%, 5%, 20%, more, less, but I'm starting to think I may be better off renting for another year, even if I pay another $150 - $200/month (move to a better place and pay a bit more for quality of life). Renting for another year or so may also buy some time to see if we are entering an inflationary or deflationary period.
Lastly, I'm still debating if I want to be 'lock' into a house. I'm (almost) 48. At 55, 7 years, I can take early retirement from my employer (full medical coverage) and go do something else. I'm somewhat getting tired of the Seattle area. The crowds, the taxes, the political correctness (as a straight white male I'm tired of being told I'm what is wrong with the world). Might be nice to go to Spokane, or the Tri-Cities, or even Yakima. The money I don't spend on a place in the Seattle Metro area will go a long way in those areas.
You would be better off renting.
Here's the deal though, you could find a place where the numbers work. A cracker box in MLT is for a young family and that would be your target market.
What I know right now is that there are large dividable lots out there that builders need to dump. You have the enviable position of being a good buyer in a bad market.
In August and the middle of September, when the bloom is off the market you will find a better deal. Find something with potential. There are plenty of places like that out there.
I mentioned large lot because you mentioned Eastern Washington. Just as an aside I know of a place a builder tied up in about 2007. it's a nice house on about 2 acres off the 220th street exit. It's across from a park, very private.
Last I heard the builder buyer was on an extended vacation.
I'm just saying, looking at the internet for a box to sit in for seven years could lead to adventure or a box.
But, now it's all about future possible utilization?
If it's about utilization how is one kitchen, one living room, one garage, etc. serving only one person a better utilization than 5 people sharing one kitchen, one living room, one garage?
If you want to define a McMansion as an oversized house for the lot/neighborhood then fine. But if you go with utilization then you're way off. Either way pick one first.