House Hunting
Datrick just bought a house, but Nat and I are just starting to look. We are trying to figure out what house we want, and still can't decide what area we want to be in. Here are our conceptual options, with the general characteristics of the regions. What would you pick? How do you value commute time Vs size of yard Vs distance to stuff? In each of these regions, imagine a detached single family home, with 3-4 bedrooms and decent square footage.
1) Close to work (3 minute commute, one way), on the lower end of the budget. Decent sized yard, decent house, nothing architecturally special. Great daily time saver due to short commute, but far from the city and friends.
2) Moderate distance to work (15-20 minute commute, one way), on the middle to upper side of the budget. Nice suburbia neighborhood, nice house, backyard looking on to trees or park. Lots of neighbors around you. Medium distance to friends, close to lots of shopping, medium distance to city.
3) Far from work (30-40 minutes, one way), close to the city on upper end of budget. Location with great view (overlooking river+city, or just forest), or if no view then on a secluded foresty property (between 0.5-1.5 acres). Architecturally interesting house, but would probably need some cosmetic help. Close to city, medium distance to friends.
4) Far from work (30-40 minutes, one way), on upper end of budget. Far from city, far from friends. Lots of LAND (5-70 acres), such as in farm land or forest land. Private secluded house, but 15-20 minutes from the freeway, and then another 15-20 minutes from anything else.
So where do you stand?
Does an almost non-existent commute time trump all because of all the extra time you gain, or is being far from everything else a deal breaker?
Is suburbia a nice middle ground, balancing commute time and distance to stuff? Or would you rather have 40 acres of farmland, or be on the river looking at the city?
Yeah
Germantown-ish is an option for us, but only if we get a kick-arse house (which we've seen a few we really like!). That area puts us in a decent location to get almost anywhere without getting trapped in highway traffic, which is nice. But living in the area we are now is definitely the easiest to do, since we know we like the neighborhoods.
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It's tough to make a decision based off of friend locations...because then everyone gets up and moves!
Seriously
It's also tough since my friends live all across the greater PDX metro area. It's not like everyone is on the west or east side.
The friend distance measure was more to take into account how far in the boonies we would be (e.g. on a farm). Someday when I'm rich I'll buy a block and get all my friends to live on my street so the commuting isn't so bad to see everyone.
Update
We drove around a bit today and checked out the neighborhoods of some of the houses we are interested in. Hated the riverview house (one of the region #3 places from original post), loved the foresty house (#3, but was actually a much shorter commute than we thought), and liked a couple houses a few blocks from where we live now (#2). Didn't like a farm house with 10 acres (kind of a #4, but was was actually only a 20 minute commute), and liked a couple houses that are a #1.
But we eliminated tons of others, so right now we have four or five on our short list. Now all I need is to get pre-approved for a mortgage!
Sweet! I'm excited for you
Sweet! I'm excited for you guys. :)
You'll have to show me what you guys are looking at. Send me an email.
oh
One thing I learned while doing some housing research the past few days is that it looks like we haven't hit the bottom of the residential housing crash yet. One of the causes for all the foreclosures was people taking out ARM (adjustable rate mortgage) loans. For those who don't know what an ARM loan is, basically you pay a reduced rate for 2-5 years, then the rate resets and you pay a higher rate for the remainder of the loan. Simplistically, what this means is that your monthly payment goes up, often by a significant amount, 2-5 years after buying your house. This increase is called the ARM reset. Many people in the past couple years have found they couldn't afford the increased monthly payment, and so had to foreclose on their house.
Well, in 2010 and 2011, there are actually more ARM resets occurring than in 2008 and 2009. Given the state of the economy, it is estimated that about 35% of the loans will default and go to foreclosure. In short, the calm we are experiencing right now that seems to be the start of a recovery for our economy is likely just a small break before another storm. Indicators appear to say this recession will be a "W" shape; a downturn, followed by a minor recovery, followed by another downturn, followed by growth. This is as opposed to a "V" recession, where there just a single downturn followed by recovery. Right now, we are on the upturn part of the middle bump of the "W."
Ok, that's a lot of background, but my take home message is that I'm no longer feeling as much pressure to buy a house sometime in the next couple months. Sure, we would love to buy a house to settle down, and it would be sweet to take advantage of the $8k tax discount if we can find a house in the next couple months, but I'm not going to kill myself to make it happen. The housing prices will still be depressed 12-24 months from now, so I may ride this out a bit longer to see if the deals get better.
Waiting requires patience though, and I'm not afraid to buy a house if we find one we like, the price is right, and we are able to get pre-approved for a mortgage. So we'll see how long I last :)
Anyway, I read a bunch more interesting things about the economy, but I won't bore everyone with them here. Suffice it to say we probably have a few more years before things really start to recover :(
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This article claims that the V/W/L/X shape of the economy can't be predicted and talks about the impacts - I thought you'd be interested, even if it's not about housing.
Good article
That was an interesting article. Basically a sociological analysis of the impacts of the recession (I'd actually read one of the books they mentioned!). Thanks for posting it!
Language Fail
For a second I didn't know if you were saying:
I would actually read one of the books they mentioned!
or:
I had actually read one of the books they mentioned!
This is a failure of our language, and it amuses me.
lol
That's funny, I typed quickly and didn't proofread properly!
To clarify, I was trying to say that I have actually read one of the books they mentioned in the article. It was back when I was a sociology major, once upon a time.
We haven't bought the house
We haven't bought the house yet. :) We still have to do inspections.
Obviously, I am willing to deal with the commute based on where we ended up getting a house (anywhere from 35-45 minute commute in the morning for us). But I'm also not quite as bothered at being in the car as either I'll chill out to my music, listen to NPR or call people (with a headset of course). Commute is probably the most difficult part for a lot of people because everyone has different thresholds.
What I do hate is being far from everything (grocery, friends, good restaurants, fun places to go). So living out on the outskirts of town would bug me... and being too far from the city would bug me. Really, if you are too far from everything, it's a lot less likely you are going to see people. Most people I've seen tend not to stray far from where they live when they have time off. Also, the older and busier we get (with kids, etc)... the less likely you are to do things in the city.
Obviously, you should trust your gut on what feels right to you. I definitely don't see you and Natalie being happy being so far from work. A 45 minute commute seems like it would just make you unhappy. And from the conversations I've heard from you, you like some privacy. But you both are also very social (considering you like to have people over and stuff)... so living out too far will discourage that a lot more. So I do think the area you live in now or something comparable is the right thing for you. You have to decide what distance is going to be acceptable for you and work. If you want a longer commute, I think houses in the Overlook area might be something you consider (since you can take Germantown road out to work and avoid highway traffic mostly). Also, the areas around Bethany and stuff off of Saltzman may be another area to look.
Shorter commutes, your current area or even closer into Hillsboro around Intel might be ok (although privacy wise it might be harder to find something).
Good luck in finding something! While I know you never could live in North Portland or Northeast Portland because of the commute, it would be awesome if you did live not too far from us. :)