Sleepless in Seattle

Dreaming of living in Seattle again someday. We have two different tracks we like to envision – living in a fun apartment downtown or buying a small multi and living in one unit. We want to be close to employers, to restaurants, to the Pike Place market, to the bus or light rail.

Every few months I like to take a look at the listings.

149 multifamilies for sale in what I consider downtown and downtown adjacent. Narrow it down to under $2MM price tags, it drops to three properties.

A duplex in need of TLC, another duplex I’ve seen a few times and am not excited about, and a funky fun triplex right up my alley. Built in 1903, so it has the character, but with lots of upgrades to appeal and not be a maintenance pit.

From the listing, the location boasts a 98/100 walk score, is zoned LR-2 urban center village, and preliminary drawings have been done for sub-platting the back of the property to build 2 additional units.

It doesn’t come close to the 2% rule, it hits about half a percent. It has a negative cash flow of $460/month/unit, with all the units rented, without house hacking. If we lived in one unit we’d be in the hole at least $50K/year.

But rent would be about $2700/month, which is $32K/year… our all in cost of living in our small town is about $20K/year, so we’ll keep on dreaming for awhile and wait for the Seattle market to cool off a bit.