Bellingham, the ugly truth.... (Seattle, Vancouver: vacation home, luxury, places to live)

[PartIrish]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

I agree, you can't classify every landlord as a slumlord, but with the lack of housing the trend is families out and students in. Even on my street, I've noticed a trend(cancer) happening to family homes, first a garage/estate sale, then the house for sale, moving van in driveway, sign says "sold", front lawn is converted to more gravel driveway, soon it's for rent, then driveway and street parking is full of cars. Of course we don't like it and aren't going to look at these landlords in a positive light, how would you like it if your neighbors did this and all of the sudden instead of a family you've got 8 students crammed into the house next door, coming and going at all hours, street parking all filled up with cars, noise, parties, etc?

Theft and violent crime is up. A man with a long rap sheet of drugs and violence punched a woman, stabbed another man, and then *murdered* a retired City of Bellingham water department worker walking the trail by Whatcom creek.
This man was living in state subsidized housing.

https://www.bellinghamherald.com/new...219643470.html

https://www.bellinghamherald.com/new...219789370.html

The recent horrific crimes by this mentally disturbed man are truly awful, although it's hard to tell whether his (subsidized) housing situation was in any way causal. He could have been homeless and carried out the same act, or even living in unsubsidized housing.

We have always managed properties by a simple golden rule--put only tenants into a property with whom you would enjoy living next door, and then treat them as a valued tenant. That means not renting to student groups, people who cannot produce strong references from prior landlords, etc. We just won't do that to people in the surrounding homes. In all the tenants we've had in Bellingham since 2003, this rule has failed us only once--during the one year we allowed a property manager to put a tenant into a house we owned. He was a disaster and we got him out as quickly as we could. (It turned out the property manager knew him, misrepresented his suitability and then lied to us for several months about his failure to pay utilities, etc.) We apologized to the neighbors on either side.

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by bartonizer

Bellingham in 2018: Like other desirable and scenic towns its size around the country (Asheville, Missoula, Flagstaff, Boulder, Bend, etc. etc.) it faces certain challenges- like a lack of affordable housing, lack of high-paying jobs, and homelessness. As evidenced by some of the posters on the thread, though, it clearly continues to be an apparent kryptonite of sorts to some conservatives and/or longtime residents, who preferred industrial explosions, low real estate values, large, dilapidated sections of town, and smelling like a pulp mill to today's climate. Yes, those were the days.

Bellingham has good paying jobs, the issue is that it's all relative to the cost of living/housing. Just like people can make tons of money in New York for example, but can only afford a run down tiny apartment on that income. The thing is, New York is simply out of space, Bellingham is not. I'm not in favor of all the people moving here and all the growth that comes with it, but I'm not in favor of the way Bellingham and Whatcom county are dealing with it either...in all reality, they aren't. We are getting the people but not accommodating the growth. Nearly 6000 people moved here in the last calendar year, and at the same time 300 some units of housing were permitted. The rest has been left to demand and supply, which has stuck the working class with just-shy-of-Seattle housing costs but on a little over half the income.

[bartonizer]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

Bellingham has good paying jobs, the issue is that it's all relative to the cost of living/housing. Just like people can make tons of money in New York for example, but can only afford a run down tiny apartment on that income. The thing is, New York is simply out of space, Bellingham is not. I'm not in favor of all the people moving here and all the growth that comes with it, but I'm not in favor of the way Bellingham and Whatcom county are dealing with it either...in all reality, they aren't. We are getting the people but not accommodating the growth. Nearly 6000 people moved here in the last calendar year, and at the same time 300 some units of housing were permitted. The rest has been left to demand and supply, which has stuck the working class with just-shy-of-Seattle housing costs but on a little over half the income.

Trust me, I'm aware of the housing shortage- or as you mentioned, the restrictions on new growth. We bought a house in 2016 and are looking for land to build a house (almost impossible) or another house to buy for our in-laws, who are about to retire and move out here. And I realize a scarcity of inventory (and demand by multiple groups of people- students, young couples and families, retirees, etc.) drives up the price of units here, making it very tough to find a good place to rent. I do think that Western's upperclassman ridiculously high off-campus housing numbers (75%+ of students) is a problem, and I do think that the city should be figuring out responsible, but accelerated ways to build affordable, (but not just for low-income) housing, in infill and around town.

Again, though, I totally disagree with your "just shy of Seattle housing cost" assessment. It's not nearly as close as you make it sound. I know quite a few people (including myself) who work by remote- and relocated here because Seattle is much more expensive. Practically speaking, the cost of a comparable apartment within a reasonable distance from anything is about 30-50% less in Bellingham, and if you're looking to own a house, something comparable in Seattle's generally at least 2x the price. It's true that the average pay in Seattle is much higher, but it's much more expensive to live there.

https://www.zumper.com/research/aver.../bellingham-wa
https://www.zumper.com/research/average-rent/seattle-wa

[mayfair]

Originally Posted by bartonizer

I do think that Western's upperclassman ridiculously high off-campus housing numbers (75%+ of students) is a problem, and I do think that the city should be figuring out responsible, but accelerated ways to build affordable, (but not just for low-income) housing, in infill and around town.
]

The upperclassmen have little choice, since Western guarantees on-campus housing to new students, and offers returning students a lottery for only 800 on-campus spots.

[bartonizer]

Originally Posted by mayfair

The upperclassmen have little choice, since Western guarantees on-campus housing to new students, and offers returning students a lottery for only 800 on-campus spots.

That's precisely my point- it's certainly not the students' fault. I think WWU should have to provide more housing options, rather than just being allowed to continue growing and further eating into Bellingham's already meager supply of homes. I mean, even WCC is building dorms- and it's a community college. Apparently it's not even on the radar for Western, or at least they have no immediate plans to build anything....They need to play at least some role in helping the situation, as opposed to making it worse.

[rkcarguy]

I know it's not the students fault. WWU is state ran. Funny how that works doesn't it? Expand expand expand to collect more tuition. Parking? Housing for all those studetnts? Not their problem. It was noted that there is more students at WWU than there is rental "beds" in the entire city of Bellingham, not taking into account the rest of the people.

Earlier this year, the average listed home price in Bellingham was over $500k, putting us at ~17% below Seattle's average. I'm sure you get a little more house for your money still, but again the average pay is a little more than half what it is in Seattle.

[Ruth4Truth]

For all these complaints, why isn't the City Council addressing this, with the school? Elect city council members, who pledge to do something about the problem.

[rkcarguy]

I really don't think they see beyond their noses, and appear to be stuck in the ultra liberal lets be like Seattle mindset. All they've done for example, is they were proposing to revise Alabama St. down to one lane in each direction and add bicycle lanes. A "housing emergency" was declared and while I've seen more infill and apartments going up, its just a drop in the bucket compared to what we really need.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

I really don't think they see beyond their noses, and appear to be stuck in the ultra liberal lets be like Seattle mindset. All they've done for example, is they were proposing to revise Alabama St. down to one lane in each direction and add bicycle lanes. A "housing emergency" was declared and while I've seen more infill and apartments going up, its just a drop in the bucket compared to what we really need.

There are TONS of empty lotos around Bellingham! Lots of infill potential, but then the problem is--can the streets handle tine increased traffic, that infill inevitably brings? You can see what happened to Seattle, after the city chose to go the infill route, sometimes round 1990.

But a system of co-op contemporary dorm buildings, like Berkeley has off-campus, or "apodement" buildings, like the ones serving not only UW and Seattle U students, but also young college grads around the city, shouldn't be difficult to bring about. Does the city own any land it could make available? Maybe some kind of land trust could be created for the purpose?

I gather that WWU doesn't have a separate budget for new buildings, like the UW has?? And its original land acquisition never took into account future growth needs, like the UW did?? Is that typical of the regional public universities in WA? The founders never thought ahead?

[rkcarguy]

It's happening, but not really fast enough to help. The population growth is fast outpacing the building of new infill units.
I think they need to think bigger, like the city needs to look at annexing some large area's and start to consider developments in the 1000's of units and homes, not 300. Property taxes and permit fee's from these should cover the costs of more roads to handle.
It's sad to see such a thing happen, but better than just everyone being cyclically priced out of the area by richer and richer people as prices skyrocket. Look north for what can happen. "I won the lottery! I can put the winnings down on a Condo in Vancouver BC".