Archive for Objectives
Do Duplexes in Seattle Make Sense?
Posted by: | CommentsWhew! I have spent some long afternoons the last few days poring over Seattle real estate listings on ziprealty.com… looking at several different things…
- Multi-Family Investment Property (in a market with cap rates at 4-6% for the most part, it’s hard to find anything realtor-listed that makes sense.)
- A future home for my husband and me. We love our like-new 3-bedroom townhouse, but we’re out in Lynnwood which affords my husband a 30-60 minute commute both ways each day… yucky. Plus, with a baby on the way and another one off in the misty future, we know we’ll need more room at some point. The question is…when will we be able to afford more room?
Prices go up steeply as you get closer to downtown Seattle. (I was looking at $500,000 homes in my search today… that’s the cost of a 4-bed 2,000 square foot house in the neighborhoods we’d prefer.) - Duplexes.
Now let me explain about the duplexes… they are my magical solution to the high cost of living problem and the low amount of space concern.
Here in Seattle, we have lots of older homes that have been converted or modified to be duplexes. For example, a 2,000 square foot house might have a 2-bedroom upstairs unit and a 2-bedroom downstairs unit.
My idea was that we could buy something closer in (Greenlake, anyone?) for $500 – $600K and rent out one of the units for $1,000 a month or so.
That would mean, instead of our monthly house payment doubling from $1,500 to $3,000 – rent would offset a portion of our costs and we’d only be looking at about a $500 increase in monthly expenditure.
Then after we could afford the “full home” or really needed the extra space, we could kick out the tenant and convert the entire property back into a single family home. (Or just move our kids to the downstairs unit. HaHa!)
The problems with the duplex idea include:
- We’d probably be in smaller living quarters (1,000 sq ft, 2-bedroom unit instead of 1500 sqft 3-bedroom unit) but of course that totally depends on the building.
- My husband doesn’t like “older homes, dumpy homes, or homes converted into duplexes.” He says if he were to live in a duplex, his preference would be to have one that was built as 2 separate dwelling units from day one. Although many of the buildings we’ve seen are gorgeous with gleaming hardwood floors and trendy interior finish (hey, what do you expect for half a million bucks!) I’m not sure if they would meet all of his criteria.
- If we ever decided to move out of the building and try to keep it as a rental it probably wouldn’t cash flow. (What else is new in Seattle.)
- We’re not sure if now is the right time to buy ANYTHING since the Seattle market seems to be stagnating and DOM are increasing and listing prices are decreasing. We’re not bearish on the market by any means, but it would be cool to buy when prices were going up rather than ….????….????? (We’ll call that sideways!)
When it comes to ROI in Seattle, appreciation has always been the name of the game since, according to my father who owned an apartment back in the 70′s… nothing’s cash-flowed since that time. It’s a matter of getting in and holding on.
So… I think I checked everything on the market and the conclusions of the day have been.
- Hubby would prefer to be a little further out to have a much bigger/nicer home (palatial new construction vs. remodeled, but charming 1920′s construction).
- We’re not going to buy for now (Ed Note: This subject to change daily. I love real estate and I can’t be stopped from thinking about it) since we seem to be entering a bit of a soft phase in the market.
- We’re going to work on saving 20% down for our next home purchase so that even if it is bigger/nicer (read: More expensive) the payment won’t be prohibitively high.
In the meantime, I’m going to consider looking at some foreclosure properties (I have a few buy-at-auction services I’ve been looking at lately) and who knows… I might happen across a deal that makes sense!
Emily
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Making 2008 Baby-Liscious!
Posted by: | CommentsSo Christmas has come and – an alarming 2 days later – gone… I am back in my office surrounded by fun new toys, a pile of stationary for writing thank-you notes, and a penchant to blog rather than doing any “real work” since I’m still “transitioning” back into my normal schedule and anticipating another fun 4-day weekend coming up.
Thus far with the New Year of 2008 approaching, I have personally:
- Eaten lots of Christmas cookies to get them out of the house before Jan 1 marks the renewal of “healthy eating habits.”
- Started a new pregnancy exercise program and stuck to it for 2 days in a row. (Thanks for the workout DVD Laura!)
- Shopped for maternity clothes at a consignment store (3 pants, 2 T-shirts, 4 outer-wear shirts and 1 baby jumper for $165 – much cheaper than at Motherhood Maternity!) and tryed to start saying “I look pregnant” instead of “I look fat.”
- Had a great conversation with my Dad and Husband about the stock market and whether we should be bulking-up our cash position with the anticipation of a falling market and buying opportunities to come.
- And started asking a lot of other people what their 2008 New Year’s Resolutions are.
Yes, I admit it – I’m heinously curious about what other people do and think. (My husband says I’m hard to converse with at restaurants because I’m too busy eavesdropping on other people’s conversations to conduct one of my own.)
But the reason I have been asking about others’ resolutions is to get inspired myself. My mom and I had an interestesting conversation about “giving” the other day at lunch (in a restaurant, I might add!!!).
We are both looking for ways and places to give that create “meaning” and advance society. She is particularly interested in education, for example. I tend to lean toward medical research. It’s having these conversations, though, that helps me examine what I think and believe, and find new “thought opportunities” and places to challenge myself.
This year I figure that since I am pregnant, I am off the hook for setting a weight-loss goal. Since I’m making more money than I ever have before (and so’s my husband) we’re good financially even with a baby on the way, and since we are really happy and super-satisfied with everything at this point, there’s not a lot of “want” driving me at this point. I need a new challenge – I figure my baby will provide that when it comes along (don’t know if boy or girl, yet) – and for now my midwife has been telling me – “Don’t get started on too many new projects – you might have energy now (second trimester) but that may start to fade (big time) in the third trimester.
So… here I am – starting a new project – this blog. But I figure as long as my projects involve sitting down (I could even see typing from bed, if I want!) and are on my schedule, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
So – Emily Cressey goals for 2008 include:
- Figure out how to blog and stick with it
- Pump up the content, value, products and client list for my company’s new website: www.TheRealWealthCompany.com where I am the webmaster (sort of – I don’t “do” technology too well, but I have contractors to help me with it…. )
- Exercise in an empowering way on a daily basis during the week.
- Continue to save half our income until the baby comes and Don’t Stress About Money after it arrives.
- Have a healthy baby and learn to love it and take care of it.
In the meantime, if I have time to I will
- Close on at least 1 personal investment property (already have a Single Family Home under contract at 75% of “market value” in Charlotte, NC.
- Invest in $10M more of commercial real estate with www.GrasslandInvestments.com – my commercial investment firm.
- Find new personal finance and real estate consulting clients to work with on a regular basis.
- Visit my in-laws in Fort Mill, SC to show off the new baby
- Visit my grandparents in Milwaukee and go to my Aunt’s wedding (and show off the new baby)
- Support my sister, Laura, with the purchase of her new Ballard Condo – if she decides to move forward with that. She’s a GREAT negotiator, so I’m not too worried about her.
AND - Learn how to post video online with my new video camera. I have the feeling it will be a red-letter year for home videos… and I may throw some professional video tips in every once in a while, too.
So that’s it… I will not call them New Year’s Resolutions, since that seems kind of – well MAJORLY – cliched. These are a few objectives, reflections and ponderings.
I’d be interested (and inspired!) to hear what your plans are for 2008! Post below!
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