My wife works in Tacoma, I work in Seattle. This significantly limits the "liveable" range where we can still both get to work and home in a reasonable time. There's minimal work in my field in Tacoma (hell, there's minimal work in my field in general) and minimal work in her field in Seattle.

Tacoma is about 30-45 minutes south of Seattle.

Marysville is 45-1hr NORTH of Seattle. Add another 30 minutes for crossing THROUGH Seattle, and she'd be seeing 2+ hour commute times each way. Ick.

I'm more interested in the finances of the whole operation, never having owned a house before.

Oh, and one more thing: We're considering moving to D.C. still - probably in the next 5 years.