erbfarm

I've been doing some thinking. Here, I've got this plan to move to a more urban environment (Portland, OR or Seattle, WA) and finally ditch my car and get to live the bike-centered lifestyle I've been wanting to live. Thing is, I've been getting so discouraged by the price of houses in both of those cities. And the thought of selling our place and then having to dump lots of $$$ into another place just to get it up to the standard of my current place (nothing glamorous, but at least a kitchen and bath that aren't stuck in 1940) really turns my stomach. But what are the alternatives? We've got two dogs who need at least a backyard to play in. We don't need much in the way of house size (1100 sq ft would do just fine), we don't have a lot of stuff at all. Is there a way to not shell out high dollars for rent but yet not shell out even higher dollars for a house especially when we probably won't be in our next location for more than 5 years? Just curious how many other BF members are living in non-home ownership circumstances. Yes, we could find a cheaper city, but I've got some family in Seattle and really want to live in a bike-centric area.

travelmama

Why not rent out the house that you have now, move, and buy again? You will continue to pay on one mortgage unless you are top heavy on what you have now. I took out a small loan for home remodeling and had some left over. I saved it for many years then decided to buy another house. Fortunately, the house cost about $70k (including repairs). The rent should pay for the house in 5 years or so. I have a housemate who pays rent, the two rents combined are nearly enough for me to triple my loan payment. I am on the slow side of work now and have thought about moving somewhere temporarily to make more money to buy yet another place. I think it is best to set something up so that you are taken care of financially. Set up a situation that will work for you should you lose your jobs, your bases are covered.
There are a lot of cheap places to live all over (nice or bad neighborhoods). Since you want to downsize, you may have no problem.

wahoonc

For a while I used to buy small duplexes or triplexes and let the tenants pay the mortgage...got to pick my neighbors that way too. As far as selling and having to update, sometimes that is the best way to get a property for less money, by putting the sweat equity into it.

Aaron

gerv 

Anyone I know who moves to urban centers like Seattle are going to pay considerbly more for housing than most centers I am familiar with ( Mid West...). To deal with that issue, they tend to settle for considerably less housing than they might in the Mid West.

There is the fact that you won't have the additional expense of a car.

But down-sizing does require some tough decisions. You probably need to do some research and ask yourself what it is that you really need.

Llamero

I just moved from Seattle and the rental market is crazy, You have to remember you have boeing engineers and programmers for google, microsoft, etc who have exceedingly more in discretionary funds and can easily outbid you for real-estate. One choice is to go deep into the burbs, but then the commute takes hours. The other choice is to live and work in the pacific northwest, but in a less populated area like Gold Bar or Index, but even those places are being developed and bought up now. There's a LOT of money out there since it's such a nice place to live, so your going to have to pay a premium to live in a premium area. That said, my wife and I are already looking into returning back to the area, but will likely stay renting for at least the near future, since the rent:house price ratio is still HEAVILY in favor of renting in that whole area.

Llamero

Oh, one alternative to renting is to live in a coop. They do exist, but make sure you get along well with the co-owners. Another common tactic is to buy a house, and rent out rooms to undergrads. There's ways to make it work, but the ideal way is very specific to the individuals involved and the particular situation.

Mr Danw

I see it as two choices, rent from a person or rent from the bank. Ever try to havethe bank fix your furnace?

sykerocker 

I'll make a suggestion on a totally different track:

Assuming you're not moving for an already set job, why not move somewhere that has the potential to be bicycle friendly but is completely and totally unhip?

Yeah, I'm being serious. As you've discovered, hip destinations have a real bad disadvantage. They're expensive as hell. And is it REALLY that important for you to live next to various coffeehouses, rock clubs, art galleries, etc., etc., etc; just to be able to be smug in living in one of the suposedly hip, neat places in the western world ?

According to the last Wall Street Journal article I've read regarding Portland and Seattle, the employment situation isn't exactly the greatest in either of those towns. Aw, what the heck, you can always become a barista at some trendy, hip coffeeshop! And peddle your butt around town, to and from whatever it is you end up living to the coffeeshop, to all those other places where you don't make enough money to go into on a Saturday night . . . and eventually realize that you're getting nowhere in your life. But you're living in a hip place.

Assuming you're just planning on making a clean start, why not worry more about how expensive it is to live there, how expensive it is to eat, sleep, and **** in that area? What's available in jobs and how well do they pay in relation to the cost of living? Pick someplace inexpensive, off the beaten track, and do what you will to turning THAT town into a neater place to live. Most towns are easily doable for bicycle commuting (Johnstown and Pittsburgh, PA are the closest I've come to that are difficult), and a bicycle subculture is hardly necessary to be able to get around on your own.

Yeah, I'm cynical. Every time I hear someone is moving to Portland or Seattle, my eyes roll . Such a lack of originality.

Disclaimer: I'm 59 years old with all that entails. One of the truly wonderful things about late middle age is that you're finally free of the tyranny of being hip - mainly because you're too old to be so anymore. It's nice. Lime green polyester golf slacks are now a possibility - if I want to wear them.

Machka 

I agree! If I were to move back to Canada, Winnipeg would be one of the choices at the top of my list. The city of Winnipeg is not very friendly to cyclists, but the country around is. There is some great riding in the country around there ... empty highways, slow moving traffic. And although the city isn't particularly friendly to cyclists, it is managable by bicycle. But Winnipeg isn't trendy ... the population of Winnipeg doesn't change much ... and the housing prices there have remained relatively stable.

If you want to stay inthe US, I'd look at some of the small-to-medium mid-west cities.

erbfarm

thing is, guys, I've already been living in a very un-hip place for the past 15 years and I'm just ready for a little anything goes attitude. Normally, I wouldn't consider hipness a draw, but in my case, I just need a break from convention. Pittsburgh is a nice place, in fact it's my home town, but I wouldn't want to move there necessarily. I know there's a ton of $$$$ in Seattle, but I don't live too far from Boston and I'm used to people who have $$ for no real reason that is apparent to me. I'd like to get away from that also!! I work in higher ed and my husband works in hi tech so we need to be near a tech-geek hub of some sort. I just don't want anything to do with the suburbs anymore and I've lived in a rural area for long enough to really crave a small house w/ a small yard and a couple of places to hang out in on occasion that you don't have to drive to. Not looking for the moon here. The other thing is, my sister lives in Portland, owns a condo which she just purchased 18 months ago at the height of the housing boom, has a salary half of ours (and even has to pay 9% income tax on it vs zero for us here in NH), and still manages to save money and have way more disposable income than we do. Reason? she never has to drive her car b/c the public transportation is so great there and/or she can walk to everything including her job. She doesn't have any property to maintain so doesn't have to own the cadre of power tools and implements that we do to deal w/ acres of trees, grass, fencing, rocks etc., doesn't have to deal w/ all the home maintenance $$$ issues like heating and plumbing, and also doesn't have any dependents (or even pets) or health issues. I can't do anything about the last two items on the list, but I sure as heck can do something about not owning much property, not having much house to maintain, and finding someplace to live where I don't have to own a car.

Dahon.Steve

The OP needs to head back to Seattle.

The option of buying a fixer upper is long gone in that town so you basically have two options. A nice house with a very long commute or a small two or one bed room condo with a high price. I would take the latter any day of the week (if you have the money) since a commute longer than an hour and half get old fast. Just make sure the condo association accepts pets and you'll be fine. You would be surprised at the HUGE dogs people are living with in Manhattan. You would think these folks are living on farms but no, those dogs are being raised in one bedroom or studios! LOL!

If it were me, I would look to live within walking/biking distance of that lightrail line Sound Transit constructed. You can usually find prices drop further down the line even if it's one or two miles away. They are extending a line to the University and this is a good opportunity to move near that stop before the prices go up. My expereice has been that home prices next to a lightrail stop increase 15% - 20% after four years.

Otherwise, look at the Sounder commuter rail line as a solution but homes next to the line will be expensive. You may have to bike to the rail station but again, prices tend to go down a mile away which can make a huge difference. A one mile bike ride to the commuter rail staion is nothing.

It worse comes to worse, look at the express bus situation. Study the schedules and find out which ones provide frequent service during rush hour. Then look for housing around one of the stops.

Llamero

The buses can be a good option too, as there are many express runs that go straight from the suburbs into the city, and the buses are super clean (you'll find mostly white collar workers and students on the buses). However, rush hour is brutal on I-5 or on any of the transit services for that matter, so I would avoid any sort of 9-5 job if I was living in the suburbs. I strongly second living in the city in a condo. The city is pedestrian friendly, and most people just walk to wherever they need to go. If you have money and REALLY want a house, you may consider Shoreline or Northgate if you're going to be working in Seattle (stay away from Sodo or South Seattle in general). And if you're going to be working on the Eastside, consider living in Factoria or the out-skirts o Redmond. The best case scenario would probably be to get jobs in Everett, and live there as well. Everett is a really nice city, and is getting nicer, and has direct access to both Seattle and the Cascades.

gerv 

Sounds like your sister provides the model you are aspiring to.
I think you've answered the question correctly. Car ownership costs on average 17% of average household expenditures compared to 32% for housing. [source] .

MacCruiskeen

Though in most condo situations you pay a fee to the association to take care of those things for you--it's not free. And anything goes wrong inside your apt--it's your problem. My wife and I bought a house here in Cambridge a few months ago, and we were lucky--we found an affordable single-family in a city where those two things rarely go together. Personally, I'd rather have the hassle of dealing with the maintenance than dealing with the annoyance of neighbors overhead. We have car we bought used for cash, and out situation is such that we can leave it home most days (wife walks to work; I ride my bike or the T). The condo might work for some, but around here it's a poor value compared to a house. You're probably better off staying a renter than buying a condo.

Nickel

We do co-op rental for our 722 sq foot split 2 story. It is really affordable and is near good bus lines and the biking is great [midwest]. However, we could not live here if we had dogs. I have friends that have had a difficult time finding even duplexes that would permit a dog and ended up having to purchase a home. If Seattle has an artsy area, it may be a place where you can find small homes that permit companion animals and don't cost a bajillion dollars. I'm not sure if condos allow dogs unless they are small ones.

Elkhound

Could you perhaps buy a vacant lot and put one of these https://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ on it? Or, as you have family there already, do any of their houses on lots big enough to squeeze a Tumbleweed into the backyard?

akohekohe

Well, both of those industries are amenable to working from home to some extent. It might be worth looking into seeing if you can get a job that works from home. I managed to teach a course for a Swedish University from my house here in Hawaii (in spite of the 12 hour time difference) and my consulting is all via the internet and occasionally the phone. I still have some teaching that requires me to show up at the University but I do most of my research right from home. Work from home and get an xtracycle for the shopping and you're car free no matter where you are.

What I like about owning my house is it makes it easier to be greener. I just installed a photovoltaic system and now I produce more electricity than I use - next up a cistern system - can't do that sort of thing when you're living in a condo.

Roody

I'm not convinced that Seattle and Portland are the only places in the free world where one can live carfree, although they may be the only places that are "hip enough" for some people.

erbfarm

I agree w/ you Roody and after much reflection, I've taken Portland and Seattle off of my "must have" list and now I'm on my 2nd tier pics which are centered on college towns since I work in higher ed. Want to weigh in on Champaign, IL or Ithaca, NY? Both of those places seem doable from both a bike-centered and a cost-of-living point of view.

Llamero

Seattle car-free?! Seattle has as much a if not more of a car culture that their Californian neighbors. I-5 and I-405 are a solid river of cars throughout the day, and if you live on the eastside, the buses are practically useless unless you work at Microsoft. There's also the exceedingly chronic problem of Seattle drivers running over and killing cyclists and pedestrians. I can't tell you how many times I was almost killed in a cross-walk by a car turning right on red without even really slowing down for the intersection. And then there' the Burke-Gilmann trail, a pedestrian "freeway" that passes through the U-district, where I had my first cyclist on cyclist collision due to cyclists riding extremely agressively. Seattle has a LONG way to go before it becomes amenable to a car-free lifestyle.

I lived car-free for one year in downtown Seattle, and you have to be ready to pedal in traffic, and with some of the steep hills in Seattle, you're talking thigh shredding, lung exploding hill climbs trying to go fast enough so the guy in the H3 behind you won't run you over for having the gall to be cycling in front of him even though you're practically tail-gating the car in front of you .

On the other hand, Portland seemed to be quite pedestrian and cyclist friendly when I visited there, and I have a friend in Eugene who said pedestrian life is pretty nice there as well.

Roody

Come to Lansing! There's a "real" city right next to the quintissential college town, with a much cheaper housing market. You could be in on the ground floor of a growing bike community in most of these college towns. But I've heard that Champaign has bad traffic and Ithaca is hilly.

My point is, there are hundreds of communities that support carfree living. I sometimes think that happiness is somethin you must eventually find within yourself, not in your surroundings. I know a middle-aged couple who uproot themselves every couple years...always searching for some external perfection that they never find....

erbfarm

this is always the case. I've already got happiness, just looking to ditch the car and not have all my $$$$ go towards housing costs, that's all.

Robert Foster

To me I always thought the goal was to a pay off a home so you didn't have to rent. Nows I realize with the current economy things are harder than they were but if you are selling a larger home and want to move to a smaller one first you might wish to look for a place to move where you get get property at a price you can afford. There is even the option of finding a community that allows you to own the property you can place a mobile home on. Yes the home doesn't gain value like a stick house but if you are retired it doesn't matter and you don't pay rent.

Roody

lol

But if I understand your main point, I probably agree with you. There are a number of good reasons to buy a home, but making money is not one of them.

Robert Foster

It used to be and someday may be again. But still the idea was to buy a place you could afford and pay if off before you retired. Once that is done you can be as car free as you like unless you live too far from services. And as some have posted there are new home "models" that are moving away from McMansions. But that isn't always possible for some.

Another option, that might not be technically car free is RV park living. I know people that sign up to work at RV parks all over the country just to get free space rent and maybe a few extra bucks. If someone sold their home and took part of the money to buy a RV, Trailer or fifth wheel big enough to live in they would only have to drive to a new place two to four times a year. Plus that will get to see other parts of the country. Just a thought.