What a great place to find information. I hope someone out there can help me now.

I'm a 29 year old architect (almost licensed) in Seattle. I'm starting to think about my own house and what I can afford. My problem is the financing. I'm single, and as mentioned before, an architect. So, I'm not making the big bucks that afford me a Seattle lifestyle or be able to put much of a down payment on anything in King Co.

My sister and brother-in-law recently moved here and we started talking about buying something together. It would have to be a duplex style or even a triplex (rent the third unit out). I'm sure prefab, like flatpak, can be configured this way. My biggest questions are
1) how do you finance something like that?
2) where do you build something like this in Seattle?

There aren't exactly empty lots lining the sound. I work close to downtown, my sister in Bellevue and my brother-in-law works out of the house. I read that most pre-fab housing is about $200/ sf, w/o land, site work, etc... That's a pretty small place based on what I'm thinking we can afford, which isn't much for all of us, about $400k? Is this realistic? Should I even try? Am I delusional about being able to do this? Help!!

You're not going to find 'affordable' anything in Seattle. If you do work downtown you might look over at Bremerton...but hurry before the prices go through the roof. Bremerton was recently mentioned in this past Sunday's Pacific Magazine in an article on revitilizing local Port Towns (Tacoma, Bellingham, Bremerton). In the article it mentioned that the Frog Prince of all these revitalizations was Bremerton. There is 500 million dollars in redevelopment going on in the city right now. I was lucky to get in while the gettting was good...now a decent house is 200K but you can still find vacant land in Kitsap County for a reasonable amount of money. When the new Narrows Bridge is done this entire area (from Gig Harbor to Bremerton) is going to go gang busters. Sitting on a ferry during a commute sure beats sitting in your car stuck in traffic...and if you can walk on the boat and walk to your job in downtown Seattle - all the better. If you haven't been over here yet you should come check it out...do your research...you'll see what all the Buzz is about...

John