We are a young family and we are looking to upgrade to a bigger house. I know Mercer is a win win location. But this house we are looking at is in South Mercer. Few we looked at are in Sammamish. Which one would you go for - Mercer or Sammamish? Please leave comments Mercer: $3.2M, 4,380 sq ft, 0.27 acre lot, 2015 built https://www.redfin.com/WA/Mercer-Island/7560-86th-Ave-SE-98040/home/260794#overview Sammamish: $3M, 4,850 sq ft, 0.35 acre lot, 2015 built https://www.redfin.com/WA/Sammamish/2004-222nd-Ave-SE-98075/home/22222726 Sammamish: $2.55M, 4,000 sq ft, new built https://www.redfin.com/WA/Sammamish/24524-NE-19th-Pl-98074/home/176358427 Household TC: $750k Current home worth: $1.7M #housing
you should be talking to your agent not blind
Love this post, I like looking into redfin so much
Sammamish has seen a lot of amazing growth in the last few years, so a lot of things are pretty modern. The community is pretty nice with great schools. Genuine question- how do you afford a $3m with $750k TC, are you even planning to get a loan, if so what would be the mortgage? I'm genuinely confused, I have $4k mortgage payment for $600k loan and that is pretty tough already.
Large down payment (30% min). If needed, sell the current home that has large equity in it. After than the mortgage will be within 35% of our house base.
Thanks for the response. Btw, don't know much about the Mercer Island Indian community, the only references I have heard are younger families renting/buying there, before moving to a bigger house on east side. Except Doctors, not sure why, who like Mercer Island. Hoping you don't mind me asking further- 35% should put you over $10k a month payment. Do you feel comfortable with that?
Honestly, most everything is over-priced right now and rates suck. I wouldn't buy anything right now unless you have "Fuck you!" money and simply don't have to worry about being upside down in a loan.
Ya prices and rates are high. Are you in the market to buy or already own a house?
I own my place outright and while I want to upgrade. I really don't want another mortgage.
Just curious, why are you not worried about layoffs
Following
Exactly - again, unless you have "Fuck you!" money, now is the time to be holding cash, not spending it.
How in the world are you planning to pay a 15-17k mortgage if one of you loose employment? Not trolling but genuine question so that I can learn
by keeping a solid 1 yr minimum emergency fund (including mortgage payment).
What is you run out of funds in 10 mons and still can’t find a job ? Or you do find one but with only 50% TC Not wishing ill but thought I’d play the scenarios out
OP sold a startup. He owns the other one. He wont layoff himself from his own company
It is a concern/factor for decision making. How long do you think one should wait? When there is path for economy recovery, housing market may go to the moon again potentially. On the other side if recession continues, housing continue to decline. What is your suggestion?
Honestly, you should buy now. The prices are down upto 20% in Sammamish/redmond education hill area. You will get hit with high interest rate for a short time and then you will level out. For whats its worth, I bought in June 22, at the pick but i think in the long run it will be ok. Check this one: https://redf.in/XM3Xga https://redf.in/Xl4WTV https://redf.in/RZso4K
I wud choose Mercer island over Sammamish any day. It’s great connectivity and has a premium location brand to it. Sammamish has the premium too but has been fading slowly. Sammamish was great in 1990s and 2000s. It’s still running on that hype train but the reality is slowly setting in as ppl get much better affordable houses at places like Bothell with terrific connectivity. I live in Sammamish by the way. Wanted Mercer but it’s beyond my affordability back then. Just from houses u posted, I prefer Sammamish for its larger yard and space. While Mercer house looks gorgeous. Either way, putting 30% down in this market is highly risky. Especially as u said you wud sell it at a loss in a worst case scenario of layoffs. Ur equity cannot be recovered once locked in. So be mindful of that. Tbh my household TC is more than urs but I wudnt touch a 3M house in current market. Heck even 2M is a big stretch. Unless majority of ur TC is cash. Ofcourse it’s subjective but tread carefully.
Thanks for the inputs and perspective. It is helpful.
I don’t know about Mercer’s demographics but newly moving families to Sammamish is almost half Indians. New community has 2/3 as Indians. The schools (especially elementary) are also half with Indian parents. Middle and high don’t have as much but that will change. One thing about Sammamish is that it is in LWSD. If your kids are highly academic just like many other Indian kids; it won’t satisfy the needs. For instance, Quest program (highly capable program) doesn’t even provide any advanced curriculum that is granted in high school. This is different from Bellevue where they can get all foreign language credits to take to high school along with English and science. This is a huge difference. College these days much harder to enter compares to even 5 years ago. Kids are taking 15 college level courses just to get into a state college (with most of grades being A). The competition for Asian kids are fierce (there is a quota for Asians in college no matter where you were born). This is why Bellevue sends a lot more kids to top colleges. Don’t be fooled by the school scores. That’s for average kids who don’t even aim to study at UW. Basically rarely any kids go to Ivy from Sammamish unless they get the lottery into Tesla. Some athletes and some exceptionally bright kids (perfect score everything, research papers and US national olympiad winner) only. There were a lot of angry parents that their kids can’t even take Algebra 2 before high school as the high school discourages. LWSD is great if your kids aspire to study at UW in non popular major. Top kids will be able to study CS at UW but that’s it. Basically all Indian boys apply for CS so imagine the level of competition (search destination school + high school name at Youtube). See for yourself. To explain, your kids IQ needs to be at 99 percentile and the academics should be above 96 percent in all categories with average being 98-99 percentile to qualify to get to the program. Out of these 80 or so kids every year in Sammamish, only very few go to top 20 colleges let alone kids in non Quest programs.
Who cares what school they goto? Ivys are overrated. All you need to get into tech and make 400k/yr is leetcode.
Lol yeah everyone wants to work as a software engineer, right?
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Racist this post is.
Ahhh here comes the moronic comment 🤧
That must be why OP removed the 6 times he made it about race