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’s 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.
“We’re committed Pacific Northwesterners,” said Mr. Strelecky, who works at a real estate title insurance firm.
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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.
“In the desert, you lived like you were in a suburb and we realized, ‘Wow, what are we doing? We don’t like living in suburbs that much,’” Ms. Strelecky said.
Instead, they figured, why not find something closer to home that they would use more often?
Last fall, they started looking for a new place in Portland, Ore., a three-hour drive from their house in Seattle. They’d spent time in the area, including from 2014 to 2021, when they owned a hazelnut farm in nearby Newberg, Ore.
“They really were attracted to the walkability, and also they really aligned with a lot of the ideology of Portland,” 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.
Eventually they expanded their search to include Seattle, where Ms. Strelecky grew up and where three of their children live locally.
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’t 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’d sell the home in Rancho Mirage first, which would allow for an all-cash purchase. Otherwise, they’d need a mortgage.
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.
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.
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