Puget Sound hoping (Seattle, Edmonds, Burien: real estate, how much, houses)

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by rkcarguy

$392 a month in HOA fee's, no wonder it hasn't sold!
That area of Blaine/Birch Bay is very nice, near the beach, but it's also SOLID TRAFFIC often, this time of year.

Price is $309,900 for a 2bd/2ba condo (1,065 sqft) with a "peek-a-boo" bay view, with a short walk to the beach. The estimated monthly cost of $1,742 includes 1) property taxes ($220/mo), 2) home insurance ($108/mo), and 3) HOA ($392/mo).

It looks like they had a pending sale that fell through on 3/11, was relisted on 4/21, and the price was dropped $4,100 on 5/12.

That's life at the beach. Little or no traffic the other 8 months of the year.

[Alinka]

jerezdevil,

Probably my priorities are water views (waterfront if $$$), and sunset views as well as a balcony or terrace. Previously I lived at 5000ft and had a great city and sunset view- both of which I miss; no water views to be had here but I had a pond. The property was at the edge of open space, so especially with the pond there were a lot of birds.

I don't want large and especially don't want grounds to maintain. My first choice is a high rise condo. Since I'm not familiar with the area I'm challenged to find the right community.

Like you, I wouldn't want a five bath monster either! Sq ft 1500-2000, 2/3, 1.5/2. Not fancy, but upgraded.

[xPlorer48]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

That's a scary price on a little 2 br/1 ba 920 sq. ft. house in B'ham, Donkey! It's a wild price, compared to when I was looking in B'ham, which wasn't that long ago! I hadn't realized how really insane the prices had gotten! And what's the draw? What does B'ham have to offer? It's not like it's a tech center w/tons of jobs, or anything.

Supposedly it's retirees responding to "best place to retire" articles causing much of the influx? I'm not buying that. There's something else going on here....RE speculation? REIT's "discovering" Bellingham, maybe? IDK. This pricing doesn't make sense. Why is this priced the same as your third link in your earlier post? That one's a 3 br/2 ba for the same price as this little one. The 3 br one is a more realistic price (though still high compared to a few yrs. ago).

Median price is now $542,000. Many of those moving to my home town are tech workers who can work from home (SF, Seattle, etc.), retired folks with home equity, wealthy people, outdoor oriented folks like mountain bikers, some RE speculators (many are targeting lower to mid price range), second+third homes, and climate and forest fire smoke refugees. This snapshot was gleaned from conversations with people who have moved here and several RE professionals.

[Ruth4Truth]

Why doesn't WWU acquire more land and build more dorms? The UW has a budget for that, and has also acquired new properties for academic buildings over the years. (That weird law school building, that they ended up abandoning, & building a new one on campus.) . UC Berkeley has bought properties near its campus and expanded over the generations to build more dorms, house more offices, etc. What's WWU's problem? They're not being a very responsible "citizen", dumping thousands of students onto the city's housing market to fend for themselves, and leaving the city to deal with the fallout.

In spite of that shocking situation, and in spite of the campus that looks more like a film set than a real campus, it manages to be a good school, and has some unique programs. But in other respects, it seems a bit raggle-taggle.

Why hasn't the city build more boat launches, if the demand is there? What about the waterfront beyond the city boundaries, to the northwest?

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Why doesn't WWU acquire more land and build more dorms? The UW has a budget for that, and has also acquired new properties for academic buildings over the years.

https://westerntoday.wwu.edu/feature...ience-building

Western Washington University will build a new residence hall at its main campus....

The new Residence Hall will be sited where Highland Hall and Highland Lounge currently are located at the Ridgeway complex of WWU residence halls. The Highland buildings will be demolished, starting in late September of 2019, followed by construction of the new facility, which is slated to be complete and open before fall quarter of 2021....

The new residence hall will have approximately 400 beds in a mix of room types, a net gain of 264 beds after accounting for the loss of beds at Highland Hall. Amenities will include laundry and storage, lounges, common kitchens, kitchenettes in some units, and study areas. Other possible amenities include a café, multipurpose flexible spaces and living-learning spaces.....

The new residence hall is being designed to appeal to a variety of students by price point and amenities, and is expected to help retain upper division students who often desire room types not currently available on campus, thereby mitigating the demand in the local rental market....

About 4,000 students live in Western’s residence halls on its main campus in Bellingham.

This spring and summer, Western is completing a two-year, $24.5 million renovation of the Buchanan Towers residence hall on south campus. In 2011, Western opened a five-story, 105-bed addition of about 37,000 square feet to the east side of the Buchanan Towers building. The addition is not part of the current renovation of the older part of Buchanan Towers, which was built in 1971.

From experience, having lived in the Ridgeway dorm complex as a freshman many, many, many moons ago, I can say that the first thing most freshmen want to do is to get out of the frigging dorms!

Most of the dorms are uphill (note Highland and Ridgeway dorm names) from the main campus, that is itself uphill from downtown Bellingham - going from the Ridgeway complex to downtown and back is quite a hike! (In my days, there were no buses.) Most off-campus student housing is downhill from the campus. Note: There are few, if any, private multi-story housing complexes just off-campus, unlike at UW, so City zoning laws might be playing a role.

[mayfair]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Why doesn't WWU acquire more land and build more dorms?

It works the way they are doing it- they have about 3000-4000 in the dorms and there are so many off campus apartments where the landlords make money renting to students, and the students like to live off campus. It does help make housing overpriced since it's limited in town.

I'm not sure there is a lot of buildable land for WWU to acquire (and it would be very expensive). They have been doing tear downs and filling in buildings for new dorms etc.

[rkcarguy]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Why doesn't WWU acquire more land and build more dorms? The UW has a budget for that, and has also acquired new properties for academic buildings over the years. (That weird law school building, that they ended up abandoning, & building a new one on campus.) . UC Berkeley has bought properties near its campus and expanded over the generations to build more dorms, house more offices, etc. What's WWU's problem? They're not being a very responsible "citizen", dumping thousands of students onto the city's housing market to fend for themselves, and leaving the city to deal with the fallout.

In spite of that shocking situation, and in spite of the campus that looks more like a film set than a real campus, it manages to be a good school, and has some unique programs. But in other respects, it seems a bit raggle-taggle.

Why hasn't the city build more boat launches, if the demand is there? What about the waterfront beyond the city boundaries, to the northwest?

As Crazydonkey noted, they are building more dorms as they got a lot of heat for having so little student housing. A few years ago there was only 700 some dorm rooms. WWU is ran by the state, so the most tuition they can rake in and the least they can spend is a win for them.

Regarding boat launches, word is WDFW and others would like to have more, but the states ecology dept. fights them tooth and nail and basically said there isn't going to be anymore, period. If you find/hear anything different, feel free to post it up.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by mayfair

It works the way they are doing it- they have about 3000-4000 in the dorms and there are so many off campus apartments where the landlords make money renting to students, and the students like to live off campus. It does help make housing overpriced since it's limited in town.

I'm not sure there is a lot of buildable land for WWU to acquire (and it would be very expensive). They have been doing tear downs and filling in buildings for new dorms etc.

That's not what rkcarguy said. He said the dorms only house about 1000 students, but around 8000 are enrolled. The new construction mentioned here would only add 5-600 beds, which is pathetic, if it's true they only house 1000 students in the dorms.

[mayfair]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

That's not what rkcarguy said. He said the dorms only house about 1000 students, but around 8000 are enrolled. The new construction mentioned here would only add 5-600 beds, which is pathetic, if it's true they only house 1000 students in the dorms.

The dorms have more than 1000 students. They have doubles and triples. Enrollment is around 16,000 and they expect around 3000 on campus in fall. Highland Hall was torn down to make space for the new dorms, so they lost beds from the old dorm which is why there isn't a large net increase.

[freepelican]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

That's a scary price on a little 2 br/1 ba 920 sq. ft. house in B'ham, Donkey! It's a wild price, compared to when I was looking in B'ham, which wasn't that long ago! I hadn't realized how really insane the prices had gotten! And what's the draw? What does B'ham have to offer? It's not like it's a tech center w/tons of jobs, or anything.

Supposedly it's retirees responding to "best place to retire" articles causing much of the influx? I'm not buying that. There's something else going on here....RE speculation? REIT's "discovering" Bellingham, maybe? IDK. This pricing doesn't make sense. Why is this priced the same as your third link in your earlier post? That one's a 3 br/2 ba for the same price as this little one. The 3 br one is a more realistic price (though still high compared to a few yrs. ago).

I've read that Whatcom County (Bellingham) does not have reliable health care. People have trouble getting a doctor, etc. Just how true is this? It would certainly be an issue to consider for retirees... or really anyone.