Hunting houses without ammunition

Hi everyone! I emailed an update to my aunt and cousin this morning and I thought I’d post my update here as well so you could all know what we’re up to. I hope everyone is well!

Amanda arrived safe and sound Friday afternoon. I’ve been running her all over town ever since in an attempt to show her everything I’ve seen and done over the last three weeks. I think she was happy to see me leave for work this morning so she can get some rest and adjust to the time change!

The house hunting is going great! We’ve found a neighborhood we both really like about 30 minutes outside of Seattle. It’s located at the base of the Cascade mountains near a river and a lake. It’s a beautiful setting and it’s not too far away from everything. House prices are pretty steep out here because of the high concentration of people and the relatively small amount of available land. Between the Cascade and Olympic mountains, the Pacific ocean, and the many lakes and rivers there isn’t a lot of land left for houses! We really couldn’t afford to live within 15 minutes of the city, but the home prices really drop off when you get 20+ minutes outside of the city because the locals refuse to drive that far to work! Folks out here think a 20 minute commute to work is crazy! I had a 45 minute commute in Atlanta so I’ll be happy to suffer a 30 minute commute to have a great house in a super scenic location!

Yesterday while searching the neighborhood we came across a development we really liked and we’re trying to move forward with the offer today. The house we were looking at (which is the last house in the entire neighborhood we can afford) is scheduled to be completed in October. So if all goes well with the offer, financing, etc, we could be in a home by then! But anything could happen between now and then, especially if rates continue to climb. But we’ll see what happens.