Upstate, SC has changed a lot since Covid and you can take it from that if you think it’s for the better or worse. We aren’t there anymore so you can figure out my opinion. Clemson University has changed a lot too and become more of a business school.

Sweet. We lived there for many years before relocating here. Just heads up - you might want to move here after your visit. Lol

Are you flying back to Greenville, SC?

Last year, we went on March 26 to UW campus and I think that was the peak weekend. They have signs everywhere and maps.

I don’t know what you mean with open - as in listed in MLS? I don’t know exact percentages, but I would gather conservatively 75% never get listed. It’s under the table deals and in some cases taking advantage of elderly. The area started providing free legal housing advice to elderly which implies city knows it’s a problem.

That would be the goal, but not happening. Families have a slim chance of getting a home against developers and investors. Until developers and investors are leveraged to point to where they slow down buying inventory, it won’t shift.

I’m not sure what the solution is. I just know that this was passed last year and probably talked about for years as a solution. The intention was to come up with a solution for more housing (and hence more affordable housing), but made the problem worse. 🙁 I will admit I thought it would help, but I was under impression that they would build up to $1mil 1600 square ft homes on 1/8 acre lots. Oh how I was wrong. I could never have thought of ways to squeeze in homes like they do.

Yes, in a matter of a few years.

1/4 acre would sell for $1.4mil+ and they’d probably squeeze in 3 homes minimum if city allowed. The homes they are building on 8k-10k lots are usually around $3.2mil still. Decent sized lots are pretty much gone from most of the area unless you are in a $2mil+ home. Developers went bonkers during Covid.

I understand they want to make money, but the city has to put some limits. The developers have a ton of buildings sitting empty as they are waiting to build and bought up the area not only last year, but years prior. My friend had rats come into her house because a developer has left the building behind her house empty for years. She’s tried to get it condemned with no luck. The small town feel of Kirkland is quickly disappearing and not the same anymore.

I think the biggest issue was that expectations was that yard sale was smaller, that homes would be priced lower to compensate. That they would provide affordable options. Instead developers are driving up the prices and not building anything “affordable.”

Look at what happened in Kirkland if you think this will fix the issue. The Cottage housing inventory was passed to allow homes to be able to build multiple homes on a lot in order to increase housing and make it more affordable. What’s been happening (1) starter home are being torn down for McMansions. I’ve seen a perfectly fine move in rambler bought for $1.25. The developers split the lot in half, built a McMansion on one half with no yard for $3.2 mil and trying to sell other lot for $1.35. (2) home continuously being built on smaller and smaller lots. The homes have virtually no yard and start at $1.2mil +. (3) homes being built in crazy space where they should be built. I literally saw a home for sale for $1.4mil with a home literally in its front year that’s $1.2mil.

So developers are just squishing more and more homes into smaller lots and causing land values to go through the roof so an average family can’t afford anything in the area, even fixer upper starter homes.

Some firings were whole teams that were working on projects that were going nowhere or losing money. Companies transferred a few employees they really wanted to keep and moved them to other teams. Some firings were recruiters and HR people no longer needed as most companies are on hiring freeze. Some firings were those related to sales that were fired due to decreased sales. And then there were firings across the board in multiple departments to get rid of positions not needed where workload can be offloaded to other existing employees.

WA state publishes the amount of employees fired in every company who live in WA. I was shocked at the number of tech employees fired that live in Puget Sound area - it was surprisingly low percentage, definitely less than 20%. So virtual or not virtual didn’t seem to make a difference.

If you want the same feel, Eastside would be a good fit.

Where in NC?

Awesome. Thanks. I’ll DM you.

What jobs are making over $400k in Microsoft, Google, etc.? General curious because I know tons of people that work for them and nobody makes that much.

I don’t know why people would trust them. Maybe because they think they are a big corporation and have big data/numbers. Everyone thinks I’m joking when I say this, but if you want to find out how the economy is doing, ask a hairdresser or see how many cars are outside the strip club.

Bingo - my husband works for corporate and nobody know what’s going on into the hear about it in the news. Internal memos always come after the news like “you might have heard so and so” and then they give their response.

Nothing is “leaked” out of Amazon without them knowing.

This was 20 years ago, so I would double check. When I was applying for colleges, I could choose current state I was living in or state my dad was a residence of in order to receive in-state tuition. I ended up attending college in the current state and no issues with meeting residence status. The college was a former military college so totally possibly they could have had different requirements. Dad was still active duty and living in the same state while official residence was in another state.

Another path that’s much harder - I had friends that declared themselves independent. Paid first year of college as out of state and established residency that first year. Then years 2-4 were in state. It makes the loans much more difficult to obtain though.

UW financial or admissions officer can gear you to the right person to ask your questions.