Great communities with < 45 min commute to SLU?

[texastrigirl]

Roloc, you'll be okay. Take advantage of the corp housing offer if you can. Or make an extra trip out here on your dime or let your family stay behind in Boulder for a few extra months while you scout out the area. It's better if they move here in June/July anyway at the beginning of the heavenly weather pattern lest they sample the rain in March-May and decide they just can't do it My husband was smart, we moved in late July so I really didn't know what had hit me until the following Nov. By then it was too late to turn back.

[SeaGuy]

You could get lucky and find a rental with quarter of an acre in the city; I've seen it, especially in neighborhoods built in the 50s. Seward Park, North Beach, and the south end of West Seattle are possibilities...but realistically you'll probably get half that at most. Craigslist is a good source, but good stuff goes fast. It's also worth driving neighborhoods, as I've occasionally seen owner rental signs on popular places that never made it onto the web.

Depending on the home's footprint (smaller homes leave more yard space!) and how it sits on the lot, 4,000 sq ft is big enough for a garage, parking, a little gardening, a deck and grill, trampoline, whatever. People get by just fine...smaller than 4,000 I feel like it starts to get tight. Even if you're on a small lot, Seattle has lots of good parks where you can enjoy the space.

[Roloc]

Yeah that is what my wife and I were just talking about last night. If we had giant city parks near us and enough to have a small garden back home we would be fine.

I think it really comes down to the corporate housing and how long they give us there. The plan as it stands right now is to try and find something to rent near Amazon at least for a 6 month lease so that we can use that as our home base for exploring where to buy all the while cutting down on the commute. Does anyone know what kind of corporate housing they offer? Pets? 3 bedrooms? Is it downtown?

I have my craigslist notifier app going crazy on my phone now just to see what pops up, but before you nice people helped me narrow down the search I wasn't seeing good results just looking for homes in "Seattle". It should be better now that I have narrowed down my criteria.

I also thought it would be better to have them move out later on when it was summer just so we could spend more time exploring while the weather was nice, but if things move to fast I don't think we will get that luxury. I am not to keen on leaving them behind for 3 months or so.

And so far everything at Amazon seems to really depend on what group you are going to. I was lucky enough to be interviewing at two different groups last Friday and should they both want to hire me I get to choose, so we will see I guess.

Also regarding the weather: I am a pale Irish/Scottish anyways so I don't mind the rain or the clouds. Frankly I usually end up running from the sun anyways and prefer hiking in the rain . My wife on the other hand is one of those bask in the sun people and loves Colorado for that reason, 300 days of sunshine to well... not is going to be tough on her. We have had very long talks about if she can handle the rain regardless of what Amazon is paying us or where we are living. She is being extremely supportive and is trying to look past that but I am very concerned about her for when we get there. I realize this topic has been covered ad nauseum on this forum but it sounds like some of you in here had to deal with it first hand. Do you have any advice I can pass along to her?

[tatania199]

I was really worried about the effect of the overcast weather on me.

We've always lived in Canada, with a ton of sun, even through the winter. And I always really noticed that I lost all ambition for anything when we had a dreary stretch. So, coming here, we were really concerned.

Honestly, so far, it's been fine. The difference for us is that we can get outside and run errands and explore the city year round. It's so temperate here. Coming from the part of Canada we did, we'd have months of snow and cold, with seldom a winter that didn't spend some time at -40. (Celsius and Fahrenheit sort of meet in misery when it gets that cold, in case anyone is wondering about conversion.)

While life always went on and nothing stopped no matter the amount of snow or temperature, it's not a lot of fun to run errands and since skin freezes after 30 seconds, walks are limited to getting to and from the car!

Not having our lives restricted by weather is awesome. It's just something we could never have appreciated. My husband has been hiking with the dog every weekend. Our youngest and I spend our time exploring everyday. So, while it may be dreary, it's so livable. Not restrictive.

Another thing we really notice that makes a difference - it's so lush and green year round. Back home, everything sheds leaves and for half the year there is nothing but white. Or brown. Here, it's so lovely and lush and green, with mountains and lakes in every direction - so, that takes the edge off the dreariness in a big, big way. And I think that is something you might not notice or appreciate if you've always had it - but coming from somewhere with no green from October to March...it's just amazing.

The infamous rain - no one told me that it's mostly drizzle, on and off, and not endless downpours. So, it's impact is so much less great than I expected based on what we'd heard.

So, while I don't discount that it is, in fact, overcast and grey a lot, there are so many other things that come from that that make it much easier to cope with than I expected.

[Roloc]

Well... it looks like this was all for naught.

I just heard from them and they aren't going to make an offer. I really have no idea what went wrong I didn't stumble or anything and felt like I had good chemistry with all 7 of the interviewers.

Ohh well overall it was a great process and I really enjoyed interviewing there.

Thank you all so much for your information and even though it probably won't help me at this point, hopefully someone else stumbles along in the same situation and worries far less than I did because of it.

Take care everyone... and thanks again!

[texastrigirl]

Don't sweat it. It can be for any number of reasons. The "Bar Raiser" interview can be sticky and you don't even often know you are in one or what magic little words are they want to hear. Enjoy sunny Colorado!!

[tatania199]

Originally Posted by texastrigirl

Don't sweat it. It can be for any number of reasons. The "Bar Raiser" interview can be sticky and you don't even often know you are in one or what magic little words are they want to hear. Enjoy sunny Colorado!!

SO true!

[Roloc]

Thanks for the kind words!

If I had to guess I would say it was that. It was the last interview of the day (OF 7!) and I worked through everything but I certainly don't think I "Raised the Bar"...

Ohh well right back where I was 2 weeks ago happy and content

Thanks again!
Steve