Tag Archives: Moving-to-Seattle

How far is too far to commute?

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[photopress:round_and_round.jpg,thumb,alignright] The most common question I get from people moving to Seattle regards their potential commute… The question typically follows this format:

“How far away from my work can I live and still have a reasonable commute?”

It doesn’t really matter whether the person is planning to work in Downtown Seattle, Downtown Bellevue, the Amazon Campus, or the Microsoft Campus, because a “reasonable commute” is different for each person.

Some people are willing to drive an hour to save money on a home (or be able to afford a home for that matter), while others want a commute that is less than 20 minutes. Across the country (and especially in the Seattle area), the farther you are willing to drive every day, the less you have to pay for a home.

Interestingly, my work as a transportation planning consultant has put me in contact with some very interesting resources. For example, I recently came across these five maps that were put together by the regional government (PSRC) that give a great indication of the average commute:

These maps are great if you know the area you are going to be working (say Downtown Bellevue) AND you know that you are willing to commute a specific distance (say 40 minutes) because then they can help you put a definitive boundary on your home search!

NOTE: These maps are created “topographical-style”. If you are new to this, imagine that the graphic is displaying a huge mountain centered on the point of interest (like Downtown Seattle). If you move anywhere within the first circle (the top of the mountain!), then your commute to Downtown Seattle would be less than 20 minutes. However, the farther out you live, the large the hill you have to climb to get to work. For example, if you were to move to Issaquah, then you could expect about a 40 minute commute to Downtown Seattle.

By the way, the maps are a little dated (they are based on 1997 data), but the commute patterns have not changed much in the last 8 years, so the trends are still pretty accurate.

The same regional model that was used to create this data also spits out data for future years! Wouldn’t it be great to have the same maps for future years (2010, 2020, etc.) so you could gauge how your commute might change? This can be done! And if there is sufficient interest, I’ll put something like this together!

Seattle ranked as one of the healthiest cities

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swimmersWith all the great bike and pedestrian trails around, I don’t think it would surprise most locals to find out that Seattle ranked #4 in a list of the country’s healthiest cities:

The Seattle metro area had the study’s best scores in the areas of physical activity and lifestyle pursuits. Respondents here reported the highest level of vigorous exercise. Seattlites had high rates of diabetes, hypertension and, yes, sleeplessness.

Another great reason to live in Seattle!

Farmers’ Markets in Seattle

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Tulips As a test for a new little program I wrote to post things on Google Maps, I’ve put a map together displaying all the Farmers’ Markets in Seattle. In order to do this, I cribbed heavily from a few websites such as metroblogging and the Neighborhood Farmers’ Market Alliance .

The farmers’ markets current being displayed include:

  • Pike Place Market
  • Ballard Farmers’ Market
  • Broadway Farmers’ Market
  • Capital Hill Farmers’ Market
  • Columbia City Farmers’ Market
  • Fremont Market
  • Lake City Farmers’ Market
  • Magnolia Farmers’ Market
  • University District Farmers’ Market
  • West Seattle Farmers’ Market

If you know of some other farmers’ markets that should be included or some data that needs to be updated, just let me know.

By the way, I also made my first google maps “marker” for this site. If you look closely, you may notice that the marker is a tulip based on the flower in the center of the above photo.

Farmers’ Markets in Seattle

gHomes Update

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Bus Tunnel StitchedI’ve been slowly making some updates to the gHomes site. Today’s improvement was to add a link from the Google minipages to more detailed information.

If you are new to my site, then definitely check out my alpha-version of gHomes … I hope you’ll find it is the best way to search for a new home in Seattle.

(Do you know where the photo from this post was taken? Here’s the satellite image…)

Maddog on moving to seattle

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Coastal RainI just ran across this article from a Microsoft employee describing his reaction to his move to Seattle… The highlight for me was his description of Seattle rain:

Rain? Yes, but it fits, it’s nice. I think it’s kind of like the vegetable racks at the supermarket – every few minutes little jets turn on and spray everything to keep it moist.

(I also noticed that he is a huge fan of Richard Feynman, who just happened to write one of my all-time favorite books)

Moving to Seattle?

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I recently began an ad campaign on google that places an ad when someone searches the term “moving to seattle”…

Did you click on that ad to get to my site?

If so, I’d be especially interested to know what type of information that you are looking for! Is there something specific you would like to know about Seattle?

If you wouldn’t mind taking a minute to write a comment, I would sure appreciate knowing how I could serve you better!

Seattle walk

Older Homes Appreciating Faster

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Hurley and Patterson CousinsThe Seattle Times had an interesting article that describes how home values of older homes have increased at substantially faster rates than new homes:

New homes may have the latest of everything, but as an investment, a new house simply does not bring the returns that an older home does. Countywide over the past five years, new houses have posted 4.8 percent annual appreciation, while older homes saw about 7 percent. In the past year, new houses appreciated 7.5 percent compared with old houses’ 10.4 percent.

I don’t think many Seattle agents would find this information surprising as most homes as so many of the homes around here have increased in value substantially over the past few years. My experience has been that there is a large subset of home buyers that are looking for homes with character in established neighborhoods. In an area like Seattle with very few new homes being built each year, people are finding ways to fix up old homes in ways that make them shine beyond a typical “old” home.

Most importantly, assuming an old home is located in a nice neighborhood, it is relatively easy to add $100K to $200K through straightforward improvements (update kitchens, build out basements/attics, etc), whereas the opportunity to substantially increase the value of new homes is more limited.

This same report included data on the medium home values for Seattle/King County. If you drill down through their menus, you can find out how many homes were sold in your neighborhood, along with the percent that were new and median price.

The Boeing Boom

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sasha with eyeglassThe Seattle PI had an article today describing how things are definitely picking up at the local Boeing facilities around the Puget Sound. This paragraph sums it up pretty well:

The company plans to open a second production line in Renton that will push output there to a record 31 planes a month. It is also requiring some 777 workers in Everett to work overtime and will replace a key executive there amid a series of production problems before it boosts output of that twin-aisle jetliner as well.

None of this comes as a surprise to me as I’ve been noticing a substantial increase in people who looking to move to the area related to Boeing jobs. In addition, some of the housing message boards such as craigslist and trip advisor seem to have a lot more questions about good places to live for people whose jobs are relocating to Everett and/or relocating to Renton.

For home owners, any sustained expansion of jobs to the region is great news and I’m of the opinion that job growth plays a larger role in keeping home prices high than any change in interest rates! The success of the tech industry (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) in the area has done wonders for our home values and with the additional growth from Boeing, the future looks real good for Seattle-area home owners.

Seattle Wikipedia

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Jim on GuitarAre you looking for some background information on the Seattle area? Maybe you are moving to Seattle or just want to find out more about a local neighborhoods? You could do much worse than Wikipedia.org where they have entries on all the major aspects of Seattle. Entries include the local economy, culture, polities and neighborhoods (among many other entries!). Currently, the neighborhoods with entries that are pretty comprehensive include:

Also, another group has put a Seattle Wiki together that is much more specific to the area and might be of interest to some. However, as of today, the entries are not nearly as complete as the general Wiki…

What is a Wiki?

Essentially a Wiki is a user-updated on-line encyclopedia. The sheer volume of entries and the fact that anyone can update it are both its strongest and its weakest points. There is a massive amount of interesting articles, but the editors (me and you!) are often a little biased!