Job offer in Shoreline, WA

[BATCAT]

Originally Posted by ny2florida

Living in Florida isn't nearly as cheap as people think it is. You can get a 1 br apartment for $800 a month but it's not gonna be in a place you'll feel safe in. Nice apartments in good areas are around $900 - $1,200. I absolutely hate Florida, and I'd rather struggle to live somewhere else honestly. One other reason we want to move: the job we have allows us to go to college for free since I work at a university. The college I would be attending is Shoreline Community College (which is where we'd also be working)

You can find decent (by that I mean "not squalid and unsafe, but possibly a bit shabby") apartments in Seattle close to 1000; it’s just that you’re going to be talking mostly modest, smaller, older one bedrooms. You have to work a bit to find ‘em and you’ll need to be prepared to move fast with a deposit if you find a suitable one, because there will be a lot of competition for it. If you move a bit closer to 1200 you open up quite a few more options.

You can also find cheaper places by moving further out, but I’m not sure what kind of commute you’re willing to take on.

[ny2florida]

Originally Posted by BATCAT

You can find decent (by that I mean not squalid and unsafe, but possibly a bit shabby) apartments in Seattle close to 1000; it’s just that you’re going to be talking mostly modest, smaller, older one bedrooms. You have to work a bit to find ‘em and you’ll need to be prepared to move fast with a deposit if you find a suitable one, because there will be a lot of competition for it. If you move a bit closer to 1200 you open up quite a few more options.

You can also find cheaper places by moving further out, but I’m not sure what kind of commute you’re willing to take on.

The longest commute we'd be willing to work with is about a 40 minute drive.

[angelenogirl]

Here's a cute little place in Edmonds: big bright contemporary remodel with washer and dryer

A quick search turned up some possible contenders in Edmonds/Lynnwood/Mountlake Terrace. I'd also look in Bothell.

[kaonevar]

Originally Posted by ny2florida

The longest commute we'd be willing to work with is about a 40 minute drive.

I live 5 miles from SLU (near downtown), and some days in rush hour, it takes 40 minutes to get from my home to my husband's work in SLU--just 5 miles away.
Obviously there are places with better commutes if you're along the rail line, but living within that sort of commute time means you are going to seriously struggle to find something in your price range.

[Hemlock140]

The smaller houses even in sketchy areas are going to be $1,500. Nice areas a 2 bedroom house is about $1,800 or more and they go very quickly. Your commute is based on time, not miles. Just as it can take Kaonevar 40 minutes
to go 5 miles, it can take 20-30 just to get to the freeway for the rest of the drive, and more often than not that's backed up. If Mapquest or Google says 20 minute drive, double it on a good day, triple it for a bad day. If in Florida "Nice apartments in good areas are around $900 - $1,200" it is comparatively cheap. Here in Seattle that would be 1,800-2,000.

[amaiunmei]

If you are looking for an inexpensive apartment, then abandon all hope of finding it on the internet. Places that cost under $1000 exist, but almost entirely by word of mouth and/or knowing someone. You have to do the legwork to get the reward, and expecting to find a perfect place and have time to think about it over a few days is a concept that simply does not exist up here. Be ready to move fast. Have your money ready up front and be ready to fill out applications if you find something within your price range.

Another note: once you cross the border from King to Snohomish County (to the north), prices go down quite a bit. You may want to consider that as an option. You would probably need to have a car to get around (public transit is largely centered around downtown Seattle or Bellevue and can be time-consuming) if you choose to live in Snohomish County.

[mkarch]

Originally Posted by ny2florida

I guess I also have to consider that the minimum wage in Washington is higher. I set my budget for rent based off how much I make here in Florida which is $8 an hour, however in Washington I understand that the minimum wage is $9.32? So with that in mind, and us both working 40 hours a week which we would be working, we should be able to extend our rent budget a bit. Keeping that in mind, if we plan to spend no more than $1,000 a month on rent, where would you suggest we look into? We would also like to mention that we'd love to rent a house instead of an apartment, this is common in NY but I'm not sure if it is in Washington.

Houses are going to run about $1700 minimum unless you manage to find some kind of special deal like a below market sublet - or like I did in college - a place that was slated for demolition

[angelenogirl]

I see small houses listed all the time in non-sketch areas of Snohomish County in the $1300 to $1600 range. Are you looking on Hotpads and Zillow?

[Blondebaerde]

Originally Posted by mkarch

Houses are going to run about $1700 minimum unless you manage to find some kind of special deal like a below market sublet - or like I did in college - a place that was slated for demolition

I seem to recall living my senior year on (in?) the semi-converted front porch of a house in a college town. Other than the school, the town's primary draw was several paper mills. Paid the guys $90/month for that porch. No insulation, which certainly meant doubling up on comforters for those Michigan chilly winter nights. Think we had five guys living there at one point, the whole house that is. Here and there. Remember the house in "Fight Club"?

Other than that, and the rodent infestation, a great little place! As long as the cigarettes, beer, and Nintendo held out, we really didn't care. Those were the days. Guess that would be about $200/month, give or take, in today's dollars.

Probably not the best sort of place to attempt to work and start a family. That is my grave concern for people arriving here (Seattle metro) with minimal resources, having gone from freewheeling in my late teens and early twenties to being quite a bit more-pragmatic some decades later. Of course people want to live here: if you've got certain skills, the job market is a freaking bonanza and quality of life equally appealing. But it's fairly ruthless capitalism slash supply-side economics in the housing market as the evil underbelly of all that prosperity.