LogFAQs > #946634720

Hey, I'm not super well-informed on housing or costs in the area but things I can say:

Cost of living goes up the closer you are to the city, especially as far as rent is concerned - Seattle is unfortunately well known for being pretty costly to live in. Don't know for sure how hard it'll be to find a place.

It does get cheaper the further out into the suburbs you go, but do keep in mind that this is a very car-necessary region. Seattle itself is a very walkable city (mind the hills though) and has really solid public transit (great busses) but the further out of the city you go the harder it is to get anywhere without a car. Options exist, but the vast majority of people who live here own a car. We are trying to build light rail and expand bus services to help with this but we're not there yet.

I think the region is pretty un-culture shocky, I don't know the midwest but probably the most notable thing here is the "Seattle freeze", people are polite but very quiet and don't approach each other as often - expect people to not greet you on the street too much, and friends are known to be sort of hard to make. It's not hostility, it's just social anxiety, mostly. People are nice.

That's really all of my vague advice, I'm really bad on the specifics, maybe others know more. I don't have any particular opinions on which areas are particularly bad or good to go. Aside from the caveats of being a bit costly and not super easy to get around I like the region a lot, can recommend it as a nice place to live.