Visit to a NW Dream

Sis and her hubby bought a five acre view lot some years ago. After retirement, they designed and built their dream home on this lot. Sis designed the house and gardens herself and even drafted the blueprints.

We just visited them and were introduced to their dream. It was inspirational. Our ancestral families come from the farm and garden, so it is no great astonishment that one of us would inherit the interest, and it helped to have a handy partner who shares her love. They did all the grounds themselves except for the drip irrigation system. We left with a new enthusiasm for our own garden (and a car full of plants to prime our new activity).

I was allowed to take the mini-Deere for a joy ride.

The NW is called evergreen, but for some months of the year, Sis dubs it evergray. So they escape to their southern desert home in the winter.

Our New Home on Cherry Pond

Our new house sits on the SE corner of Cherry Pond, our water (retention) feature. Our back yard is a large deck facing ~NNW, perhaps 5m above the pond.

The pond hosts several species of ducks (mostly just passing through I think, but the first three below have been here every day for our first winter here). The following pictures were mostly taken from our deck. Apologies for the blurry ones (light is getting low here in the NW in the morning); the blurry ones will be replaced as soon as better are available.

Mallard (daily)

Gadwall (Daily Autumn-Spring))

Bufflehead (daily)

Eurasian (Common) Teal (Winter)

Green-winged Teal (Autumn-Winter-Spring)

Ring-necked Duck(Autumn, Spring)

Lesser Scaup (Autumn), Spring)

Hooded Merganser (Autumn)

Common Merganser (Autumn)

 Canada Goose (Autumn, Spring)

Also observed: American Wigeon, Osprey

Postscript

The pond changes its characteristics in winter.

Pictured above is our one snow flurry of an otherwise Snowless in Seattle winter.

Second Snowfall

We awoke to almost 3" of wet snow. It will only last the day, but it made the yard look special. I used a metal garden rake to shovel the snow off the walks. The city had the street plowed by 11AM.


Front of house:

House across street:

Across the breakfast room patio:

Park across street:

Note these pictures were taken with a 12mm lens, giving a distorted spaciousness to the scenes.

Striking a Deal on a New Cottage

Out with the old and in with the new. We now are active in three escrows, two as seller (Debby's Dad's house and our house) and one as buyer. Debby flew up to Washington this morning and she and our realtor scored the 2100+ sq ft, single level house we had been eyeing since Saturday. In an 11th hour deal - literally, the clock was to run out on our offer at 11PM - the seller agreed to our offer, beating the deadline by a few minutes. We will be the second owner of this 1989 house.

It took a full price cash offer and a flexible escrow timing to wrest the deal from another buyer who was also bidding high, or so the selling agent claimed. Seller's agent was also grumbling about how she had goofed and priced the house $20K too low. It sold in two days. The other bidder wasn't our biggest threat. The seller was seriously thinking of killing the deal and re-listing at a higher price. We got the deal only by our willingness to stretch out the escrow to accommodate the seller, an elderly widow (but only 13 years my senior - yikes). We saw other nice homes, but those sellers were still asking 2006 prices, when 2003 prices are more in line with our reality. Also Washington is keen on basements, and I haven't much taste for them, ruling out perhaps 80% of the properties here. I don't care for slab flooring, wish to avoid the usual moisture problems associated with underground living, and find garages underneath the house tacky. Let me stay above ground until it's my time. Also, I like lots of light of the natural variety.

Should all go well, on October 15 2009 we will commence residence in Mukilteo (in Snohomish language, good camping place or place to call home). We are landing in Harbour Pointe, a large planned community (tract) with public 18 hole golf course, annexed to Mukilteo in 1991, doubling the size of the city. Our subdivision is called Possession Bay Highlands and consists of some 252 homes on 100+ acres on the south boundary of the city (100 feet away is unincorporated area of Snohomish County, although an annexation vote may occur soon). To add to our excitement, a few hundred feet the other way runs the south branch of the South Whidbey Island Fault, judged capable of a magnitude 7.5 quake. (But it's good to shake things up once in a while, isn't that what they say?)

At our new home, I will be a 2+ mile run or bike ride to the beach and Picnic Point Park (Puget Sound, Snohomish County). The Harbour Pointe shopping area is a similar distance the other direction (a mile as the crow flies, but there's no way across our local gulch - yet :-)). Our nearest market is Albertson's (my usual choice), perhaps 1.2 miles. Other places we like to have near: Costco 3.8 mi south (big is better), Walgreen's 3.8 miles north (how did people ever manage without pills??), Trader Joe's 4.5 miles NE, and 92nd Street Park (by Walgreen's, the closest kid-friendly park with significant playground stuffs; there's a tiny one near our tract). We will miss Fresh and Easy market, but it is a southwest phenomenon.

Our new house backs to a forested open space, and has a narrow green belt on one side, which helps to mitigate a smallish lot and only ten feet separation from a large two story box on the other side. Almost perfection, except for tiny side setbacks; 10 ft side setbacks are my minimum comfort zone. These appear to be 5 ft side setbacks; this is anti-sprawl, medium-density UGA zoning in action (max. lot size 8400 sq ft), so I will consider it our green duty to accept it cheerfully. We're hoping landscaping can disguise that problem a little. We have forested open space across the street as well, decorated with a family of bears - carved wood sculptures.

Our tract is adjacent to the unincorporated Wingate tract that Debby went gaga over during our first visit to Washington. Wingate is low density SFH zoning, where decent properties cost up to half again as much as our new abode. But there is not much for sale there now except some 35 year old dogs with daylight basements and garages underneath. My favorite neighborhood on our first trip was the adjacent unincorporated area across the gulch on the coast, Wind and Tide. But there is nothing for sale there now except some dicey (vertical) vacant lots, some expensive cabins, and some multi-million dollar estates. It's really an eclectic neighborhood and the area seemed too isolated/isolating for Debby to enjoy.

Mukilteo is a little short on park space, having instead larger forested gulches reserved as open space, but not usable as parks. Our local gulch is home to Picnic Point Creek. Mukilteo made #10 on Money Magazine's top 100 smaller towns in which to live, in spite of few parks in the south city, and a large airport (Paine Field) running along most of its eastern edge (747-, 777-capable, potentially intrusively noisy if opened to commercial passenger service as expected). Mukilteo is affluent as Washington cities go, with median house price of $403K and median family income of $107K. So we are near the median on both counts. (I am feeling so, ummm..., average. I've been told this for a long time of course, always vigorously rejecting insinuations of being bourgeois, but now I see the hard evidence; I'm one of them :).

We've found a really nice, modest rambler (Washington-ese for one storey house) in near move-in condition that will suit us well, although it isn't as uniquely sylvan-NW-contempo-trendy as I had hoped to find. Actually, from pictures, it kind of resembles the nearby OC burbs, but with more pine trees. We plan to put hardwood floors in all places but the bedrooms, replace the aging electric cooktop and washer/dryer with natural gas versions, and plant a couple of trees. Then it's Mukilteo, the place we call home.

Washington, we're prepared for a love fest with you. The house is a find (larger, more modern, much closer to beach, quieter, 35% cheaper than our old one - 82 years old). Washington has no state income tax, a lower 6.5% sales tax, and a 0.7% property tax based on 2008 valuations. We'll have a combined mortgage-burning / house-warming celebration to kick things off. Y'all come. But first, help us by thinking lots of good thoughts (praying if you will) that our selling escrow completes.

 

View across new back yard

Selling Our Cottage

Our house has been on the market for four weeks. We did our monthly SOR with the realtor, viewed the latest comps, and dropped the price 4.5%. We are on the wrong side of the freeway. Location is everything. All our comps are coming from the other side of the freeway.

Debby mentioned that she thought the master bath was our weakest point and the realtor agreed. A quick redo is in motion - new paint on walls (tan) and cupboards (dark brown), replacing on-wall medicine chest with a wood framed beveled mirror, and replacing a modern vanity light fixture with a more period-looking fixture. The redo should be finished by Friday.

We also will make the living area look bigger. Today we removed the large drapes in the dining room and removed a leaf from the dining table. Debby will sell the sofa in the living room and we will move some chairs around to make the room look lived in. We were not planning to move the sofa anyway.

We'll see what the next month brings. Our realtor believes the prices in our neighborhood have bottomed. Houses are selling for asking price and more. But interest rates are starting to rise again, and layoffs continue to plague the young urban professionals who would be potential buyers here.

Meanwhile, our focus continues on the Seattle market. I will be in Seattle Tuesday through Thursday getting the lay of the land. I will learn where houses are selling there, and that's where it would make sense to buy. Location counts.

We aren't considering buying there before we sell here. This sale will in all likelihood take a while. But if something 'to die for' popped up, we would probably grab it and deal with the consequences. Hopefully, we'll be in the Pacific Northwest by 2010. If not, we are fixing this place up so that we will enjoy living here for however long it takes.