As those of you who live in the Seattle region know, the housing market here is out of control. My friend Carla moved out of town four years ago and moved back to Seattle this winter. She and her husband sold their house when they left and bought a new one this spring. When they moved back, there were seven or eight houses on the market in Northeast Seattle. Total. To compare, when we moved to Seattle in August 2004, we saw at least thirty houses in one weekend. There were more available, but we ruled them out because they were either too smaller or too expensive. Carla and her husband bid on a handful of houses, and each house had twenty competing bids. Finally, they got a house. They paid significantly more for a home that was smaller than their previous place and in worse condition. But they got a house.
And that's is not even the rental market, which is just as bad.
My husband and I own a house that has significantly increased in value since we bought it in 2004. We should be happy, right?
If I needed to move to another part of the country where real estate prices are much less than Seattle, I'd be in excellent shape. Other than that, it's not all that great. First, my house is where I live. If I want to tap into that money, I would need to sell the house and then I would need to find a new place to live, which, if Carla's story is an indicator, would be a nightmare. I could sell my house, not find anyplace else to live nearby and then pay more for a house in a worse location in worse condition.
Why is the market out of control? Two hundred and fifty people a day are moving into King County. Amazon is hiring a bazillion people and they need a place to live. Having lots of good, high-paying jobs is a good problem to have, isn't it? It is better than the alternative of having a depressed economy, no jobs and people leaving, right?
There are upsides and downsides to everything. In one sense, I am a winner in this scenario. We bought a house years ago when the housing market was robust but not out of control. But this does have a negative impact on me. The volatile housing market means my kids might not be able to afford to live here, and it will be expensive to move my parents or in-laws out here (from Ohio and Atlanta, respectively) if they can't live independently.
Right now, (knock on wood) three out of four of my parents/in-laws are healthy. My dad is an able-bodied man of sound mind in his seventies. He has lots of mileage left, but you never know if he might have a heart attack or stroke and need to move to an assisted living situation. My in-laws are also healthy; the odds of all three of them dying quietly in their sleep without needing some kind of elder care is pretty small. They will likely need to live near family, and right now Jack and I are the prime candidates out of all of our siblings who could take in our folks. Years ago, we assumed Jacks' sister was going to take Jack's parents and Jack and I would take mine. Last month, we visited Jack's sister and her family. Jack's sister has a son with a disability. When I returned from the trip, I realized Jack's sister doesn't have the bandwidth to care for elderly parents and a child with special needs. Which leaves us, and yet Seattle is too expensive for us to afford a second place for them to live.
It is great that Jack and I can live here, but it is sad to think our kids and parents might not be able to live here with us. My parents and kids are displaced before they are even thinking of moving here.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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