On the one hand

Back in 2010, when we were house shopping previously, we had our choice of properties and must have looked at more than 100 before we chose our lovely townhome. This time around, not so much.

As you can see, there are fewer houses in our price range on the market than schools in North Seattle right now. I'm trying not to be discouraged, especially since we haven't even officially listed our house, but since I'm more of a long-view type of person, I am worrying about our ability to buy a new home in a timely manner.

But on the other hand, in our neighborhood, west of I-5, there are absolutely NO townhomes for sale.  And only one east of I-5! There are tons of townhomes in our neighborhood, it's just that most of them were purchased at the height of the real estate boom here in Seattle. While we are experiencing an upswing, it hasn't come up enough for all those homeowners to make back their investments, so they are holding on to them. We, on the other hand, purchased at the very bottom of the market, quite by accident. It just happened that we were able to buy in 2010, not before, so we will get our entire investment back, maybe a bit more. And since we will have virtually no competition in this neighborhood, maybe a bit more than a little? Keep your fingers crossed, because that little bit more may mean we will be able to find more houses on the market in our price range further down the line.

Now back to packing. UGH.