You're the first I've heard to express discontent about Seattle. I'm planning on moving there. Could you explain what you don't like (aside from your HOA)?
So, my view of an ideal place to live (which my wife fully agrees with because she grew up in that place), which we're working on accomplishing, is 10+ acres, a nice garden, and neighbors who either don't care what I'm working on, or are happy to come over and lend a hand with whatever bit of machinery I'm working on in my spare time. The proper view of (for instance) a project car is "Oh, hey, cool, what are you doing with that?" and not "Why do you have a car with no engine in it? When will you move it?"
We're also both Christian and conservative. Not drug users. Prefer to spend less than we make, by a large margin. We embrace our God-given gender roles (when we were dating, I'd work on her car and she'd cook me dinner, and we both preferred our sides of that exchange, as an example). So, in a nutshell, "terribly offensive" to the Seattle mentality.
What are you looking for in Seattle and why are you planning to move to this corner of the country?
If you're moving here for tech work, and are willing to fully embrace the insanity that is downtown Seattle (live in a tiny downtown apartment for about half your takehome wages, not own a car, take the busses, walk, or bike everywhere, not admit you work for a tech company because everyone around you feels you're destroying the unique character of the area, feel that an ideal night is standing in line somewhere to spend money, believe that the number of different restaurants and bars around you is a primary consideration in how good an area is, and probably reject as many gender/sexual orientation stereotypes as you possibly can), then you might like it.
If you're planning to live on the east side, homes are stupidly expensive (400k is about as cheap as you'll find unless you're way north or south with a 45 minute+ commute), the traffic more resembles a parking lot than roads (but if you want to get somewhere, good news - 405 will soon have HOV-or-pay-absurd-toll lanes that you can pay for instead of sitting in traffic with the peons), and the cost of living is generally silly.
If you decide to live somewhere with a sane amount of land or reasonable housing prices, excellent! You'll be looking at an hour+ commute to your job, worse if it's raining. But, hey, you can join the EV owners who are incredibly smug about how awesome EVs are for sitting in barely moving traffic.
It seems to be really quite popular out here to view small businesses as "the enemy." Also, large businesses are, of course, pure evil. But, you'd better campaign for high minimum wage, since it's unaffordable to live here otherwise (apparently). Be sure to imply all small business owners are filthy rich and they only reason they're not paying their employees more is so they can hoard their riches. If they say something like, "My wife and I work 60 hour weeks here, barely make a thing, and the wage increases will drive us out of business since we won't be able to afford our employees," be sure to go on about how that's awesome and those businesses failing will make room for a better run business that can be profitable (somehow).
Also, "techie scum" is ruining the area. Or something.
It's just a very silly area. You can make a lot of money with the tech companies, but unless you're working for a tech company, it's quite difficult to live out here. It's a fairly land-constrained area with a huge flood of people moving in from all over, so that puts upward pressure on prices, as do the tech wages. The infrastructure (roads, public transit, etc) simply cannot handle the number of people out here.
The skiing/snowboarding is OK (not this past winter... no snow to speak of), but the lift lines are sort of nuts. I learned to snowboard in Colorado, and the lift lines were never a problem. Here, you can be standing in a lift line for 20-30 minutes at most of the mountains in the area.
On the plus side for many people (I don't care one bit), marijuana is legal and there are plenty of pot stores around. I hear they're quite successful. It will still interfere with you getting hired a lot of places, though.
There are also many good microbrews out of the area - if you're an IPA lover, you'll have your choice of wonderful hoppy beers.
I've lived a number of different places, and Seattle is, by far, the least favorite place of mine. I won't miss it a bit when I leave.