{"id":342910,"date":"2025-10-30T10:30:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/342910\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T10:30:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:30:22","slug":"portland-or-seattle-a-senior-couple-wanted-an-urban-getaway-for-about-725000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/342910\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland or Seattle? A Senior Couple Wanted an Urban Getaway for About $725,000."},"content":{"rendered":"

Teresa and Marty Strelecky met while Mr. Strelecky was in the Navy and stationed in Bremerton, Wash., just across the Puget Sound from Seattle. After a stint in Mr. Strelecky\u2019s native Chicago, the couple settled in West Seattle, where he worked as a lawyer and she was a stay-at-home mother to their four children, who are now adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re committed Pacific Northwesterners,\u201d said Mr. Strelecky, who works at a real estate title insurance firm.<\/p>\n

[Did you recently buy a home? We want to hear from you. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com<\/a>. Sign up here<\/a> to have The Hunt delivered to your inbox every week.]<\/p>\n

Still, the couple, both 73, always enjoyed a break from the rainy climate. Starting in around 2000, they bought and sold a series of second homes along the West Coast where they could feel warmer and dryer. The most recent was in Rancho Mirage, Calif., just outside Palm Springs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the desert, you lived like you were in a suburb and we realized, \u2018Wow, what are we doing? We don\u2019t like living in suburbs that much,\u2019\u201d Ms. Strelecky said.<\/p>\n

Instead, they figured, why not find something closer to home that they would use more often?<\/p>\n

Last fall, they started looking for a new place in Portland, Ore., a three-hour drive from their house in Seattle. They\u2019d spent time in the area, including from 2014 to 2021, when they owned a hazelnut farm in nearby Newberg, Ore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey really were attracted to the walkability, and also they really aligned with a lot of the ideology of Portland,\u201d said Francisco Stoller, a local agent with Earnest Real Estate. He had helped the Streleckys buy the farm in 2014, and the couple hired him again for this search.<\/p>\n

Eventually they expanded their search to include Seattle, where Ms. Strelecky grew up and where three of their children live locally.<\/p>\n

The Streleckys hoped for a ground-floor unit with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a limited number of stairs and plenty of natural light, close proximity to public transportation, shops and restaurants. They didn\u2019t want to pay more $725,000, but looked at a few homes above that amount to see if a price reduction was possible. Ideally, they\u2019d sell the home in Rancho Mirage first, which would allow for an all-cash purchase. Otherwise, they\u2019d need a mortgage.<\/p>\n

\"Amanda Lucier for The New York Times<\/p>\n

This two-bedroom, two-bath corner unit with 2,000 square feet was on the second floor of a 1997 building in the Goose Hollow neighborhood, west of downtown Portland. The Art Deco styling incorporated big windows with city views, a gas fireplace, and balconies off the living room, dining area and main bedroom. The main bedroom had a walk-in closet and an en suite bath, and was connected to the second bedroom by a set of sliding doors. The building, which offered a gym and a concierge, was two blocks from a light rail station, providing connections to nearby Washington Park, as well as to Portland International Airport. The price was $699,000, with monthly condo fees of $2,129 and annual taxes of $11,888.<\/p>\n

\"Windermere Realty Trust\"Jovelle Tamayo for The New York Times<\/p>\n

Just inside a gated courtyard, this one-bedroom, 1.5-bath townhouse from 1982 covered 1,290 square feet over two levels. An extensive renovation had turned the upstairs into a lofted studio with a study and added stainless-steel cross beams, giving it an industrial look. The first floor was open, with a steel-and-glass island in the kitchen. A small, street-facing patio was off a living room with a wood-burning fireplace. The famed Pike Place Market and charming Post Alley, with its plethora of restaurants, were within walking distance, as was a ferry terminal. The price was $799,000 (reduced from $850,000), and included a parking spot. The monthly HOA fee was $1,195, and annual taxes were $7,408.<\/p>\n

\"Windermere Real Estate Midtown<\/p>\n

Find out what happened next by answering these two questions:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teresa and Marty Strelecky met while Mr. Strelecky was in the Navy and stationed in Bremerton, Wash., just…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":342911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,168920,11228,168921,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-342910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-portland-ore","16":"tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential","17":"tag-seattle-wash","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115462657285054674","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}