You can get that much land within 30 mins.
Also, Google is in Kirkland, so you don’t have to cross Lake Washington. That’s a huge reduction in traffic/time.
This might be their house:
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Looks like that’s their house. I still think it’s not a wise investment. I don’t care how much that guy is making. He still needs to work a job for somebody. Nobody needs that much house. As long as he’s not financially independent I think that’s a pretty dumb move.
That’s why in this country the average adult has only $4000 savings. They can afford all the things they buy on paper. But not really.
We’re hitting a point where the average adult can’t even manage to be a home owner, so they are way above average. They made over $1M on the prior home (plus, recovery of down payment and principal paid down). Their mortgage on this place should be $1-1.1M tops. As long as you can afford that on base pay, then it’s not bad. It wouldn’t be my first choice either, but acquiring 5 acres of land is pretty awesome. That’s going to be worth a ton as Seattle expands and those areas increase in density. Imagine if you’d bought 5 acres in Santa Clara 20-30 years ago.
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How’s the property tax in Washington? How much they need to pay on that house? I would still pick 1 - 1.5M house and buy another investment property where tenant can pay it down for you.
1% with no cap on increases. Looking at taxes, it seems they are conservative on the increases vs. actual market value.
Property tax is NOT a fixed percentage of market value, it’s a percentage of “assessed value”. “Assessed value” should increase slowly, along the pace of inflation. That’s what prop 13 does.
It would be crazy to charge a fixed percentage of market value. Market value can double in 3 years and the government spending should NOT double in 3 years.
Prop 13 is the best regulation in California
Assessed value is supposed to follow market value here. There a tons of stories of older people being priced out of their homes due to property tax increases.
Michigan caps it at inflation. I can’t remember which inflation index they use, but that seems pretty fair. Most states cap the increases.
I have friends in King county. Their property tax is less than 0.5% of the purchase price. Assessed value is a lot less than purchase price and increased slowly
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Why need to be so broad? Can’t it be just for homestead?
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A fair tax should be broad based. A rental should pay the same tax as homestead because tenant has an equal right to the same property tax.
Tax code needs to be simple and the same for everyone. Creation of special interest is a divide and conquer scheme. We the people should not be divided and manipulated
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Sure you mean what you have said? Based on what you have just said, current system is completely unfair, the legal, the tax, the social, the economic, … are unfair.
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Simplicity is the key. Simple tax code is good, and it could be more fair to everyone.
Nothing is fair absolutely. Fairness can never be achieved with complex, pick and choose system. Government should be out of business to choose winners.
Not just tax code, generally, simplicity is more beautiful in life. If someone sells you a complex financial product, better watch out
Me thinks Intuit would have an issue with this…
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Simplicity is now being labeled as regressive 
. Consumption tax is regressive, income tax is progressive. Which label do you like? You should start a campaign to change the labeling of tax system, called them fair and unfair rather than regressive and progressive.
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Who cares about regressive or progressive. We only want simplicity and less headaches
I’d flat tax every dollar of income above the poverty line. Zero deductions. We’d need a tax rate of about 15% to equal today’s revenue. We’d get rid of all the complexity and special interests.
Special interest group would ensure that this won’t happen. Btw, how to deal with the differing cost of living in different places? $50k could be a poverty wage in SV but rich in Mid West.
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Poverty level is set nationally based on number of people in the household. I agree that’s not at all equivalent across the country. That’s the same reason I’m not a huge fan of national minimum wage. $15/hr in SF was way different than $15/hr in Des Moines. Let local govnements handle it.
You get used to more space amazingly fast.
“Nobody needs 3 baths”
“Nobody needs a 4 car garage”
“Nobody needs a 1000 sqft gym room”
Etc
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