All Forum Posts by: Amit Yadav

Can someone here please help me with my doubts on adding a kitchenette to a house. Here is the situation -

The house already has a wet bar (with no dishwasher). We would like to rent the lower part of the house with a kitchenette (while we live in the upper part). My questions are:

1) can zoning of a house restrict us to put a kitchenette in the house?

2) what kind of zoning should I be looking for if I want to add another kitchenette in the house.

@Adrian Chu: We are looking between Greenwood and North Delridge area. As a matter of fact we saw one of your houses as well :) (in west Seattle area)

Buyers are also being affected by this. We have been actively putting offers (and losing) in Seattle market. Two of the house went for >50K above the asking price. I am not sure what has changed but I guess sellers are not panic selling however buyers definitely have FOMO on low interest rates and paying anything they can afford.

Thank @Michael. I was finally able to get 3.125 30 yr fixed with no points and 0 origination fees. However we lost the BId by 100k. Seattle is getting crazy again.

Due to the low inventory almost all the good houses are going significantly over the asking price. 

@Michael Haas Thanks! No we don't have a pre-approved letter yet. We are in the process of getting one.

3.625% in the current market scenario seems pretty high though, I know few people who managed to get between 2.875 - 3.25%. I don't know the details though.

Hi folks,

My wife and I are planning to buy our first property in Seattle. The property is around 50k over our budget but we plan to offset the additional cost through Airbnb. 

Anyway, the question I have for this group is about the current interest rate. Can someone advice us what's the good interest rate we can expect?(Assuming good financial situation). We plan to put 10% down.

@Ben Buckley Thanks! That's what we were thinking, but hearing it from someone else is always good.

@Dave Skow : Our price range is flexible with max up to 750K. We could do 20% down or even more, however since the interest rates are low (3.3% - 30 Fixed) we were planning on 10%. 

So we have been looking to buy a house in Seattle area. We have been mainly looking in Magnolia, Ballard, Greenlake, University District, West Seattle, Maple leaf etc. (you get the idea). Below are our few wants/needs

1. The goal is not to have more than 30-35ish minutes of commute during rush hour (to downtown).

2. If we decide to rent it out in a couple of years(2-3 years), it hopefully will pay for itself.

3. If we decide to sell it in a couple of years(2-3 years), we hopefully won't lose money(and would have saved on the rent atleast).

4. Right now we only look at houses which are near 6+ schools because investment is one part of it, but we also will live in the house so want a decent neighborhood.

5. The only reason we want to buy a house(and not rent for 2-3 years) is because the rent in these areas is crazy, it's literally like paying someone else's mortgage.

I know noone knows what's the future is going to be, but we want to make an informed decision based on any help we can get. Please don't hesitate to let us know that what we want , does not exist.

@Spencer Hilligoss

If you don't mind, I'd like to get more info on the TK company you have been dealing with.

98115 - 6.5% 

98105 - 5.9%

98109 - 5.5%

Lynwood  (98036) - 8.7%

This is what Zillow says, but i would rather rely on area experts than some machine learning algorithm.