Bellingham, the ugly truth.... (Seattle, Vancouver: condo, home, buying)

[DiscoDuck]

Originally Posted by racechick73

I'm sure not telling, ha ha! I don't want a bunch of people following us when we leave!!

From another thread you wrote:

"We're working on a permanent move to Wyoming- I'm guessing we'll fit in better there, ha ha!"

So, Wyoming, eh?

[DiscoDuck]

Originally Posted by Screenial

I've lived in Sudden Valley, and in my opinion it's too far away and it rains nonstop there. Lakeway drive tends to get black ice on it in the winter. The drive into town got old after one year. Geneva is nice, but pulling out onto Lakeway Drive is a pain, most of the neighborhood is pretty heavy with the trees ( ie, cold dark house). I was never rich enough to live in the Edgemoor or Chuckanut area, but it's nice and the schools are good . The Sehome Hill neighborhood is nice and the elementary school there is good also.

Thank you for the information! Last week my sister checked out a place for me on the other side of the lake past Agate Bay, and her opinion was that although the property was beautiful, it was somewhat remote. Then again, she lives in Seattle where everything is close by. After much discussion, my wife and I agreed that probably wouldn't work.

Sounds like Sudden Valley probably won't be the place either if the drive into town is that bad - we want to be able to take advantage of the amenites the Bellingham area has to offer like the Children's Museum, parks, Fairhaven shopping district, and downtown on a regular basis. Also, although I considered North-facing vs South-facing views and lighting, I hadn't factored the trees into the equation. Thanks for pointing that out.

I'll also add Sehome Hill into the "more research" category...

[DiscoDuck]

Originally Posted by janb

school in Lynden, it is a good place to raise a family, work (if you can find the right job) and retire too, just not too near the waterfront. Locals are really quite friendly, but I wouldn't be wearing CA license plates, or building a CA Special house (more garage than house...) and of course if anyone asks you where you are from; you might want to come up with something, like move to Vancouver, WA, on your way up north for a couple weeks and get your plates changed before you appear too obvious. And do the WA locals a favor and leave you CA home equity with the governator, he could use the 'dough'. Just bring $20k, a beater car, (no SUV's / boats...) and start like the rest of us. It's not that hard, and a good humbling experience.

Thanks for the input! We'll definitely get those plates changed pronto quick and fly under the radar in stealth mode...

So, does a shop count as a garage? From what I see on the realty websites, your "shops" up there are bigger than my house!

I'm also thinking we probably won't want to leave everything behind since it's taken a lot of years of hard work to get the cars, etc. - I started my own business years ago by selling my car and starting out on the kitchen table and while it WAS humbling and I enjoyed the struggle, I'm not at the stage of life where I really want to start over (at least financially). I'm thinking a better idea might be to bring the money and support the local businesses - restaurants, artisans, farmer's markets, etc.

And would a *HYBRID* SUV be OK?

[racechick73]

DiscoDuck-
GEE, THANKS!!
(You're a tricky one, ha ha!)

[mira23]

I have followed this discussion from the beginning and found truths on both sides. I thought I would give my view. I live in Ferndale, just outside of Bellingham, I have lived here for about 3 years. We chose Ferndale because we are a lower income family and couldn't afford the rent in Bellingham. I will agree being a native Washintonian it is beautiful here, I love the way it smells after it rains. I love the ocean, mountains, forests, and rivers; in that respect it is paradise. The facts are if you don't make over $75,000 a year you won't be able to live here comfortably. We get by paycheck to paycheck, and will never be able to own a home here; we say its our trade-off for living in such a beautiful place. My husband works for a good company and makes very little $12 an hour, I am attending college to try and get us out of this life. Unfortunately we won't be able to continue living here the negatives outweigh the benefits. Negatives: poor school systems, HIGH housing costs(and I agree when someone says obscene), high gas prices(Whatcom county has the highest gas prices in the country), no jobs that pay a fair wage. We have decided after I get my AS in geology we will have to move so that I can finish college somewhere else. As sad as it is this area is just not suited for young professional families. The only reason we live here instead of near my family in Skagit county is the rent was actually cheaper, so there are places worse off. Washington as a whole is a very expensive state to live in, and we have lived other places, but we chose to live here and tough it out because our family was here and we love it here. But unfortunately we can't do it anymore. Im tired of being low income, and there is no way to crawl out of the hole here if your cost of living is so miss matched to the wages.
To all of you who wanted to know a good area in Whatcom to live, Ferndale is just north of BHam 5 miles and it is cheaper housing and beautiful, better schools than BHam, and if you're liberal its a good compromise to Lynden. I was told you don't want to live in Lynden if you like to mow your lawn on Sunday. Anyway that was my 2 cents for what its worth.

[Linson]

75,000 ??? you must mean after taxes.

[mira23]

Yes, i do. Course I don't have much concept of that kind of money, my husband's never made over 20,000.

[Linson]

yeah, 'cause i'm just sayin' 75k is about what i make before taxes - something like 45 or so after, and after much consideration, i have concluded that i my family would not be able to live there comfortably due to the fact that it is very hard to find a nice enough house other than in Maple Falls for under 250-300K. that mortgage would come out to almost half of a months pay, with most of the other half going for utilities, car note, insurance, ect. leaving about 600/mo for groceries and gas and entertainment. unfortunately the math just didnt add up favorably.

i was looking into a 5 bedroom, 3500+ sqft plantation style home on 5 acres with a 4 car garage and a shop near Corpus Christi, TX for under 200K. it has a contract currently, but there are a lot of really nice homes down there for what wont get you a single wide trailer home (they call it a rambler up there).

[CADRMNDANES]

That's why more people need to pass props like ours here in CA. Property taxes do not go up each year or when the market goes through the roof. It stays the same as when you bought your home, no matter how many years have passed. The people that are over 60 years of age can use Prop 60, Prop 90 and Prop 110. We just used prop 60 on our current property, because my husband is 60. We transferred our property taxes from the property that we bought 13 years ago when the market was down 240k. We sold it for 850k this year. Bought a house last year in the same county for almost 700k. We dragged over the taxes and now pay less property tax.

[Ultrarunner]

Just a couple of years ago, Washington voters passed a law very similar to California's prop 13. The last I heard, the Washington courts had just about killed it.

Seems that WA is really divided. I don't like generalizing but, if I were to generalize... the area around Seattle is known is being Liberal and the rest of the state is conservative. If you live in the areas outside Seattle metro, the feeling is that the Seattle metro area has the population to impose it's wishes on the rest of the state.

If you ever want to get into a spirited discussion on Taxes and Liberal vs Conservative... all you need to do is ask a farmer in any of the rural counties. They will tell you that their very existence and way of life is under attack. Many families have roots that go back more than 100 years.

The only thing I would add to the previous post by CADRMNDANES is that California's Prop 13 does not prevent taxes for going up each year, instead it limits the amount property taxes can go up to 2%, not including voter approved bonds and and special assessment districts. The key is that Prop 13 requires the State to get voter approval in order to raise taxes beyond Prop 13 limits.