When we went to Seattle we had a week to find a place to live. This was super stressful for me. I didn’t want to have to make another trip up to look for a place to live and I really wanted to leave knowing we had a place to come to. I also wanted to know the size of the place we were renting to know what we could pack and what we needed to get rid of.
We did do a lot of research before we left on the different neighborhoods and where we thought might be a good fit for us. We looked at commute times, schools, and crime ratings. We had a list probably of ten plus neighborhoods to look at. When we landed we went to Target and got a few supplies and sat in the parking lot looking at Zillow. We called, texted, and emailed a ton of different agents and set up appointments.
At that point I was feeling optimistic because it was going fairly smoothly. When we left Target we had about three appointments set up for that day and 5 set up for the next day. We drove to our first showing. It was a three story town house. I liked it and I felt like I could live there. (I didn’t love it though.) After that I was a little less stressed. I liked it and I knew we could have a place to live.
After that we saw several other three story townhouses in several different neighborhoods. We also went to an open house to a cute house, but it was in pretty rough shape. It was getting late and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I was starting to feel discouraged. Did I really want to live in a three story town house with two little kids? We wouldn’t be able to use one of the bedrooms because it was on the bottom and I didn’t want my kids so far from me at night. If I want a house is it going to be old an falling apart and smell yucky inside? The streets were crowded everything felt tight and cramped. That was the only time I felt like I wasn’t going to be happy here.
Luckily that was the last place of the day. Chris fed me and we were able to go to our hotel. We stayed up late looking at Zillow and Craig’s List, calling, emailing, and texting people trying to find a place to live.
The next day we spent some time in West Seattle. I LOVED West Seattle. It seemed way more laid back and more familiar. The houses were bigger, yards were bigger, and the views were great. Places were cheaper too, but the commute would be pushing it. Also the schools weren’t great in the areas we were looking. We saw a house there that I loved. I loved the land lords. I loved the yard. It felt like home. The downside was the commute was about 40 min. and the schools were awful.
We looked at several places in West Seattle and both Chris and I thought we would end up living there. We contacted the bishop of the ward there, we talked to some other people who would be in our ward. We really loved West Seattle. We found another house that was beautiful there. It was a newer home, nicer and bigger than what we were leaving. We saw it and right away went and put an application in on it.
It takes a few days for them to run your application so we decided we would keep looking at places. We saw several more tri-level town houses. And we saw others with no yards. Nothing was comparing to the two houses in West Seattle. Later that night at the hotel Chris did some research and found out the house we put an application in for was in a semi shady area. It was getting better, but could still be shady. He wasn’t sure if we wanted to be there. That was discouraging for me.
The next day we saw a house in Magnolia. We both liked Magnolia a lot. But the house was old and had a lot of space we wouldn’t use. We put it on our short list, but we weren’t ready to put in an application for it just yet. We did decide we LOVED Magnolia as well, but there just weren’t many options there in a price range.
We spent the next day looking more in West Seattle and found a condo that we liked. It would be small but we really liked it and though it would be fine. Later that day we went to Magnolia and looked at the perfect house. It was a good size, close to works, close to church, close to a preschool for the kids, and great schools. We loved it. The only problem was that they were taking applications on a first come first serve basis, and they already had an application in. We were both discouraged because it was the only house that fit everything on our list.
We talked to someone who said they had to apply to 12 different places before they got an acceptance so that made us nervous. We decided to apply to the first house we saw in West Seattle, with the long commute, and the bad schools. We had one in on the nice house, but bad neighborhood, and also a long commute. We put one in on the nice Condo in West Seattle.
The next day we got a call saying that our application on the nice house in West Seattle was accepted. We were all set to sign the papers. We weren’t 100% on that one so we were trying to stall. About two hours later we got a call saying the perfect house in Magnolia was available again and we were next on the wait list. We then got an email saying that the other house in West Seattle was ours for that taking. I was very happy at this point because I knew we would have a very nice place to live no matter what! We had looked at probably around 30 different places and we were so excited that we had found several places that would have been a good fit for us!
We hurried over to the bank, pulled out money for first and last months rent and went back to the Magnolia house and signed that papers! We had to email everyone else saying that we found something else. (I felt bad doing that, but everyone was very understanding.)
The house is perfect! It is three beds, and 2.5 baths. There is a small yard, and a park close by. Chris will only have a 20 min. commute by bus. It really was everything we were looking for! It also has mountain views, and views of the Puget Sound. The park that is a two minute walk has great views of down town. We are so excited about it! We hope everyone back home can come and see it!
