We Ate the Necco Wafers: I'd like to be smug and tell them to just get some air conditioning, but I'm sweating my balls off here in Seattle today without any air conditioning.

COVID and economic devastation have shot our plans to shiat, but my wife and I hope to move to Seattle at some point. We know a lot of houses there don't have AC, but while the summer weather is milder than here in the DC area, my wife is non-negotiable on the AC demand. I told her if we found a good house when the time came we'll buy a couple portable units to pull out and use if needed, maybe just one for the bedroom.

khatores: mongbiohazard: We Ate the Necco Wafers: I'd like to be smug and tell them to just get some air conditioning, but I'm sweating my balls off here in Seattle today without any air conditioning.

COVID and economic devastation have shot our plans to shiat, but my wife and I hope to move to Seattle at some point. We know a lot of houses there don't have AC, but while the summer weather is milder than here in the DC area, my wife is non-negotiable on the AC demand. I told her if we found a good house when the time came we'll buy a couple portable units to pull out and use if needed, maybe just one for the bedroom.

Seattle's traffic sucks balls. OTOH the weather is pretty good - mostly mild but stretches of sprinkling rain or dry weather. You should visit for a while before moving there.

I'm a little nonplussed about the whole Cascadia earthquake thing (with no warning, allegedly) and Mt Rainier possibly pulling a Mt St Helens at any time.

Most houses around there do not have AC but it's becoming more common. If you put in an exhaust fan, you can open the windows and get a nice breeze going which is usually nice at any time of the year unless there's forest fires going.

If you plan to go with the no AC option, get a house at altitude on one of the ridges, not in the lowlands. This will totally avoid flooding and be a great source of fresh air, but you will have some snow and hills.

I sort of oscillate between Seattle and the Atlantic coast of Florida and I'm currently back in Florida for a while. There are good things about both places.

DC's traffic sucks about the same amount of balls.

Whenever I mention I want to move to Seattle someone always warns me about the high housing prices there.... but we live in the DC metro area. We have comparable pricing. Luckily neither the wife or I even want a large house (I feel no need to buy more home than the two of us and our dog can actually use - 2BR/2BR, and that's as much house as we even want). Shocked the heck out of our mortgage lender in a good way when we told him we planned on spending a good bit less than he approved us for. Apparently everyone tries to talk him in to approving them for more house than they can actually afford.

Central AC isn't a deal breaker, we're used to it being 95 and super humid all summer. Wifey just says if there's no AC she needs me to handle kludging some in in the bedroom and livingroom. I can handle that.

Great advice about buying higher elevations. Our house right now is kind of up on a slope, so flooding isn't an issue for us here. Thanks for the tip to watch out for! Wouldn't have really thought much about that.