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
