It's not the end of the world. Seattle is incredibly expensive, however the market is down this year and listings sitting on the market for months and months. The problem is influx of people who need to sell because they lost their job or accepted the buyout - it can ruin their life further down the line.

The Seattle "Eastside" is not really Seattle, it's Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland, Issaquah and Sammamish - overpriced suburbs. I live in one of them and work at MSFT.