Denver to Seattle, best neighborhood? (Bellevue, Shoreline: rental, townhouse, transfer)

[Fazed418]

Hey everyone! My fiancee are considering a move to Seattle next year and I'd like to get some input on what neighborhood (or suburb?) to look at. I'll preface this by saying that I've done a good amount of research and I believe that Ballard, Ravenna, Green Lake or Wallingford are the best options for us, but I haven't ruled out West Seattle, although it's farther away from everything. We're both in our late 20's (I turn 30 next year) and we have a dog which will heavily influence our neighborhood decision.

Rental per month price: We're paying $1450 per month now in Denver, which I assume will bump up to around 1600ish in Seattle. We could do up to around $1800 per month but we'd rather keep it in the $1400-$1600 range if at at all possible.

Type of residence: We'd ideally like a small house (our house in the Denver highlands is 700 square feet) with a backyard, but we'd deal with a townhouse that has backyard access or is at least close to a park that we can take the dog to so he can run around. I know this is somewhat difficult in Seattle, but I've seen a few options in some of the neighborhoods. A lake/sound view would of course be fantastic, but it's not a high priority. We don't have a mountain view and it doesn't kill us.

Social scene: We absolutely love our small neighborhood bars and restaurants in our Berkeley neighborhood now, so we're very ok with a smaller, more intimate neighborhood, but what we really want is uniqueness and character with cool places to hang out. We like to go out to eat or grabs some beers, but we don't usually eat at the super swanky restaurants that seat 200 people. And if a bar is always packed and has standing room only, I'll bypass it in a second to find that smaller bar with 20 good beers on tap and a table for two.

Parks & walkability: Because we have the dog, we're always out taking him for walks, to the dog park, or out onto trails in the mountains. We'd need a safe neighborhood which has a park (or a few parks) and maybe even a dog park where we could take him to throw the tennis ball around at.

Commuting: We'll both probably be working downtown or in Bellevue. I'm used to commuting and I know Seattle's traffic is awful, so I'm not worried about it, but it would be nice to have a 30ish minute commute downtown via bus if possible.

Any input would be great!

[RustinginSeattle]

I know someone who is renting a nice, but bland, 2 bedroom in Ballard with no view whatsoever. It's costing them about $1700 per month. I haven't rented in a long time, but it's my understanding that finding a rental is highly competitive and unfortunately having a dog will really make it hard. To find a house for that price, you will probably need to be right near Aurora (think very, very undesirable - drug deals and prostitution) or leave the city entirely. Maybe try Shoreline? It is the burb just north of Seattle. Or Northgate? Keep in mind that Seattle can have pockets of undesirable areas within the most desired neighborhoods. You might find that a house in Wallingford is $1800, but it is truly right next door to the dump (although, I'd assume that even that would be more than that cost.

Also keep in mind that on Craigslist, that which seems too good to be true, most likely is.

If you really want to move to Seattle, get yourself a short lease in Shoreline or somewhere and then do your search while you're here. 30 minutes by bus will almost always be an inner city neighborhood. I live far west in Ballard and used to work on Eastlake (South lake union). My commute by bus would have taken almost an hour (with a transfer) or I would have to have done a good amount of walking to have a 30 minute commute by bus. That's cross town traffic for you.