Pinch me because I still can’t believe this is real. After months and months of sifting through Zillow, Redfin, and endless online listings, it’s finally official. We closed on purchasing a piece of our own little paradise in the Pacific Northwest. I guess this officially makes us Washingtonians?
Okay, let’s rewind a little and talk about how we ended up here….
The first and most important thing is we wanted somewhere to call home (on this side of the world). With today’s ridiculous housing prices, we weren’t about to get locked into a mortgage we would be stuck spending the next 30 years paying off. Plus, with how much we travel domestically and internationally, a mortgage payment and the required maintenance on a home weren’t something we wanted to worry about. Especially in states we wanted to settle like Colorado, Oregon, or Washington, where home prices can easily be over seven figures. So it was time to look for alternate options. Undeveloped land is surprisingly cheap, although purchasing land can be a little tougher than simply looking at houses. Not many banks will give loans to purchase land, so a lot of times you have to purchase it with cash outright. Then there’s the survey and permitting requirements once you want to start building.
So why did we pick Washington State? It’s the heart of the Pacific Northwest, and we absolutely LOVE the PNW. The stunning landscapes, including mountains, forests, and coastlines, are like nowhere else in the country or even the world. There are abundant opportunities for outdoor activities and some of the best hiking in the world. Best of all, it rarely snows, but if you really want snow, you can drive to the mountains, which have some of the best skiing slopes in the country. A bonus reason is that WA doesn’t have income tax, so the tax savings alone for having WA as a home state was just the cherry on top.
Why did we pick this land in particular? After months of researching, we narrowed the options down to three different parcels of land. We even flew out to WA to take a look and fell in love with one the moment we arrived. It was a gorgeous property nestled in a beautiful valley, surrounded by mountains and an abundance of oak and pine trees. Eleven (YES, 11!) acres of lush meadow with two streams that gently converge along a wooded area with tons of wildlife, including fish, deer, and elk. The location was also amazing. It was less than an hour from the Pacific Coast, less than an hour from the Olympic Peninsula, and about halfway between Seattle and Portland, two of our favorite cities in the country. The price was just right—listed at around $75,000. All that was left to do was to find a realtor to do our paperwork and a bank that would finance a loan. Luckily, we found a land agent who provided plenty of guidance—seriously, if you are ever looking to purchase land in the PNW, contact John Love at KW Mountains to Sound Realty. He also hooked us up with a wetland specialist to come out and assess the land to make sure our land wasn’t a protected wetland. Then we secured a loan with a great local bank and got great rates.
Sounds perfect, right? Why didn’t someone else purchase this land, and why was it on the market for so long? Well, not everything is always roses and daisies. The big catch was that the majority of the land was inaccessible due to the river running along the road. We could access and use about an acre of land that was basically a peninsula between where the two rivers converge (see the first photo above). So we were taking a pretty huge risk in assuming that we would be able to create our own access in the future. Will we be successful? I guess you’ll have to follow along and see. 😉
I end this blog post with a beautiful drone shot of our land (still can’t believe I can officially say that) and the surrounding valley 🙂