Hi, Alex Keyes here and this is A Home in Seattle, where Seattle shines and homeownership is a path towards community. Follow along to learn about living in one of the fastest growing cities in the country.
If you're looking to make a home in Seattle, or just want to chat, send me a message at alexanderkeyes@ahomeinseattle.com.
Great video! I review plans with the city of seattle and we see lots of scooter garages. I think the main benefit is they don't count towards ADU size limits (1,000 sf in Seattle). So, the developer can market that extra square footage for the buyer without having it count against the max unit size when they're in the design/permitting phase.
I worry about the inspections provided by sellers. Inspectors, like other professionals, would develop reputations; some as more exacting, others as more relaxed. Sellers would have a strong incentive to seek out the latter.
It's a big miss by developers/builders in Seattle for not having more "scooter" garage space. We don't have scooters anymore, but our three e-bikes are each worth more than a Vespa and are easier to steal. We have lived in Seattle for decades and see a car garage as a luxury, but a "garage" space for our e-bikes (say 8 ft x 12 ft as bare minimum) is a must. We also must have a viable parking place for EV charging.
Yeah I think people need to temper the expectations some. I wanna own a home in Seattle absolutely but I know without a huge down payment and making at least 90k a year or more that’s not possible. It’s one of the most sought out places to live in the country like some other places (New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Vegas, Miami, etc) if you wanna live here this is what to expect sadly.
I really loved this video show us the journey of this listing. Makes me appreciate even more what you do!! Question: if someone requested to buy the staging furnishings could they?
Thanks Stacia! Most staging furniture looks nice but is a little smaller than normal and not very well made for using. I think most stagers would sell furniture, but it wouldn't be a very good buy 😆
I've bought an outdoor couch from Article. It's nice quality, however, potential buyers beware: Article does not carry or send replacement parts and you might want to think twice before purchasing. My dog chewed up one of the back cushions, so I thought, no problem, I'll just order another from Article. I was told by support that "Unfortunately, we don’t currently offer parts for sale." That's shocking for a premium furniture company. I then asked if they could at least send me the correct material so that I could try and have someone locally make one, and they offered to send me " a swatch." When I asked what the company might be doing in the future to help customers like myself, I was told, "I regret to inform you that we currently have no plans to modify our "no parts for sale" policy. While we understand this may be disappointing." So basically, if something happens to your $2200 couch post-purchase, you're screwed. Knowing that this company doesn't support it's customers post-purchase with replacement parts, I won't be buying any further furniture from Article.
I’m my neighborhood up in Everett houses are selling within a few weeks but at bellow asking price. Estimated house value for my home decreased this month for the first time since buying it in January.
If you buy a home with the intention of condo-izing, even if it’s years in the future, are there lenders who won’t make you do the loan dance? Maybe there will be in a few years as this becomes more “normal”?
If he wasn't paying off the mortgage it would have been fairly easy to just refinance, but even then the rate would be higher now. Maybe in the future it will be easier because these are happening all over the place now, but I wouldn't count on the mortgage industry getting easier to navigate any time soon!
For those struggling with whether to remain and buy a home in Seattle or leave due to budget.....My husband and I have lived in Seattle for 20 years. We owned a condo in South Everett, Mill Creek area for 10 of those years. Unfortunately we bought it in June 2007, right before the housing crash and were stuck holding onto it for an entire decade. We weren't even able to keep it as a rental as the HOA changed the rules after we bought it saying that it could only be owner occupied. Still we lost money when we were finally able to sell it at the end of 2016. Since then we have been renting and for financial reasons were unable to buy a single family home in the only zone we wanted to live in. Exploding home prices and extremely stagnant wage growth (even for an architect!). I would advise anyone that is already having serious financial hurdles to buying a home in Seattle to seriously consider moving out of state. If you're not expecting major pay raises, waiting it out here doesn't work. You will absolutely be priced out. Townhomes & condos are known to be very bad investments here - you really do need your investment to work for you or you'll find yourself in a serious bind in the future. I don't doubt that single family homes here are a great investment especially in the nicer, safer areas. But if you can't afford those now - waiting it out will get you nowhere. My husband and I are now having to make a major cross country move at 50 yrs old because we finally accepted that we just cant afford it here and will never be able to. Don't waste a decade like we did, if you cant afford it now then start planning to move soon and buy as soon as you get your new area.
I watch your videos during my lunch breaks. Thank you for making these videos - very useful information for people looking to sell/buy houses! You should make a video on Montlake - more people should know about the tiny awesome neighborhood that Montlake is!
1:29 If closing gets delayed by the new construction builder, can you negotiate for the builder to pay the cost to extend the rate lock, and if it's delayed even further, negotiate with the builder to reduce the price of the home to something that's comparable with the higher mortgage rate you re-lock for?
Short answer is that it depends on a lot of factors. In our case the seller wrote into the contract specifically that they would not be obligated to help with a rate lock extension. I think if it really came down to it though, most builders are incentivized to keep a buyer under contract and will give a little eventually. I'll talk more about it in next week's video! I think it's an interesting negotiation scenario.
Hey you're in my neighborhood! The tool looks great and fairly accurate. When I first moved to Seattle I choose that Madrona neighborhood because my AirBnB host sold how walkable it is and while staying in the AirBnb I picked an apartment nearby.
Lovely video. Also, please do make that video on being a landlord in seattle. Would love to hear more on that segment. Thanks for the content as always!
Close.city revealing the hidden jem neighborhoods and driving up the price. Staaahp.(Lol, jk.) It's a very cool tool! It is very cool to see how much different modes change the heat map scaling drastically.
I've been using his map since he was on KUOW and it really shows a stark contrast in walkability when compared to other cities outside the west coast. So i've all but ruled out cities east of the cascade-sierras because of it (and climate hazard maps).
This format is wonderful. I really enjoyed the conversation and getting to see a bit of the neighborhood. I haven’t been to Highspot in over 20 years. Glad to see it’s still there!!!
Good question - you answer a series of questions and the system generates a recommendation based on size, location, etc. But you can make changes if you want to set your "price" above or below their recommendation.
I live in Everett, Washington (Port Gardner neighborhood. A city thats affordable in the Seattle area. Proud homeowner of a craftsman style home built in 1922. My neighborhood is very walkable to downtown, lots of restaurants and other amenities.
