Moving from Kansas to Washington (Seattle, Spokane: 2014, apartments, rentals)

[rkaymay]

Hello all! My fiancé and I are planning on moving from Kansas to Seattle this spring after I graduate from school. We don't really know where to look for housing though. We'd like to be near Seattle (within an hour and a half max), but are having trouble finding apartments with rent under $1,000/month. Is this even a possibility? I know the cost of living is higher in Washington than in Kansas. Any ideas on where to look? I'm going to be a nurse so I need to be in a town or close to one with a hospital/clinic, also.

[Blondebaerde]

Not much within an hour of Seattle at that price point, which is why you're having trouble. That all started to rapidly disappear a few years ago. Lot of rooms for rent at that price, more or less, on internal advertisements within my employer (tech major) both Seattle and Eastside, but that's about it. Usually short-term arrangements.

Seattle's bubble economy is booming, pretty obviously, and a complicated market for housing (demand, supply seem to be in disequilibrium for various reasons) keeps prices up. Though Seattle Times says a building boom is underway, which seems consistent with my observations in places like Capitol Hill, Kirkland, and Bellevue, e.g.

Tech salaries put the primary demand on the $2K and up side, I suspect, thus that's what they're building much to the dismay of starving artists. "As of November, 2014, average apartment rent within 10 miles of Seattle, WA is $1694. One bedroom apartments in Seattle rent for $1402 a month on average and two bedroom apartment rents average $1945." (1) "seems about right" these days.

Missing some of the puzzle: where, exactly, will you be working in nursing? Considering traffic patterns and etc., that matters quite a bit. Showing up without a job in one of the hottest housing markets in the US, 10th highest for rentals (2) would probably not setup for success, in my observation.

(1)(2) Seattle Times, 2014 stories

[rkaymay]

Anywhere that I can find a job, honestly. Nursing, while in high demand, is a hard field for new grads to get hired in. Most places want nurses with experience, and it's especially hard since they want to do interviews in person. I just want an idea of where to narrow my search. And I'm open to being farther from Seattle.

[xboxmas]

Maybe the Mt. Vernon/Burlington area? There's a good sized Hospital in Mt. Vernon and its not too far from the larger Hospitals in Everett or Bellingham. Its about an hour from downtown Seattle.

[CrazyDonkey]

I'd look at Tacoma and Everett, both of which have concentrations of hospitals/clinics, as well as affordable rents (1bd apts for $700-900). Alternatively, you could also live between them and Seattle, allowing you and your fiance to commute in either direction, while still having affordable rents: North of Seattle: Lynnwood/Alderwood Mall/Mountlake Terrace/Mill Creek area; south of Seattle: Kent/Auburn/Federal Way/Sumner/Puyallup area.

Commuting options:

King County Metro Transit
Sound Transit Express Buses, Link Light Rail, Sounder Commuter Rail
Pierce Transit (Pierce County)
Community Transit (Snohomish County)
Everett Transit

http://www.soundtransit.org/document...emMap_0611.pdf
http://seattletransitblog.com/wp-con...-01-13-011.png
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_9FIVJOpmjG.../systemMap.jpg
http://www.commtrans.org/BusService/...mMapSept14.pdf
http://en.calameo.com/read/003747885f3291c2125cf

[j_k_k]

I'd look into opportunities in Spokane or Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick, Pasco). Seattle rentals are just really spendy, commutes terrible, and home ownership a pipe dream. Tri-Cities has three hospitals and is effectively a regional healthcare center; plus, the healthcare is so mediocre there that I think there's significant turnover. My self-adopted daughter is a nurse in the region and she has never had trouble finding work there since graduation. Spokane is the healthcare center for the northeastern part plus the Idaho panhandle. Both have reasonably affordable costs of living and are culturally (and climatewise) more akin to what you're used to. And that's not a political allusion, but a cultural one. I'm from Hutch and my mom's family are concentrated in the Flint Hills and JoCo, and dad's are mostly around Wichita and surrounds, and I lived 39 years in Washington--about sixteen each in Seattle and Tri-Cities, and about seven in between the two.

The beef sucks in WA, but the agricultural diversity is tremendous and delicious. Kansas has nothing resembling WA's agricultural diversity; almost everyone puts in wheat, then milo or soybeans, repeat. If you read the obituaries for the local papers, you will see that both Spokane and Tri-Cities both have significant populations of Great Plains state origin, because a lot of elderly folks' obits will tell you that Adna Marie Miller (or whoever) was born in, say, Wamego or Council Bluffs, and moved to Pasco or Moses Lake with her family as a child.

My logic is that it's not as hard to get established and get your experience on the east side, taking some visits to Seattle and deciding from there if the coolness of living there is worth the traffic and the $400K fixer-uppers. Washington is a much more diverse state, climatologically and geographically, than is well understood back home and farther east.

[StealthRabbit]

Retsil, WA (Port Orchard / near Bremerton)
1 hr via ferry.

Washington Veterans Home Retsil | WDVA

Harrison Hospital is great place to work too!
http://www.harrisonmedical.org/

Working @ VA will bring great benefits and free training opportunities.
Washington - Locations

[mrgoodwx]

Stealth beat me to it. I was just going to say...my son lives in the Manette Community of East Bremerton. He pays about $850 per month for a 2 BR apartment. It's a 12 minute walk to the ferry...then about an hour on the ferry to the terminal in Seattle. No car hassle. If the new "foot ferry" becomes reality next summer, I think the ferry ride will be about 23-25 minutes.

And...his apartment is a 10-15 minute walk to Harrison Medical Center (although I hear they are moving their main operation to Silverdale).