Northwest Living | Bellingham Real Estate Market

  After 20 years of having the Bellingham Scottish Highland Games at Hovander Homestead Park, the games organizers decided to move the annual June event to Ferndale Pioneer Park for 2007. The Bellingham Scottish Highland Games will haul its bagpipes and toss its cabers to Pioneer Park in June, leaving behind the county park to save some money, but keep the event in Bellingham.

The Bellingham Highland Games, scheduled for June 2 and 3, will save thousands of dollars by moving operations from Hovander Homestead Park, said Glen Winchester, games president. The new location, across the Nooksack River at the Ferndale city park, will still have enough space for all the events and vendors, he said.  The event is always held the first Saturday in June.

“The size of the property is a little bit larger than what we were using at Hovander,” Winchester said. “It’ll be a whole new experience because things will be in a different place.”

In addition to Pioneer Park itself, Highland Games organizers are interested in using the adjacent sports fields. Those who camp at the games will be able to stay at Pioneer Park or nearby Vanderyacht Park, Winchester said.

Parking will probably be on a lot adjoining the park, he said. If that lot and nearby streets aren’t enough, organizers can arrange for parking at area Ferndale schools or even Hovander, he said, and shuttle people to Pioneer Park.

The Highland Games draw thousands of people to see bagpipe and highland dance performances, sports competitions, and include concerts, food booths and other vendors. But the games have lost money the last two years, Winchester said, since the organizers have had to pay more to hold them at the county park.

This year’s rental cost was going to be about $5,000, plus $15,000 for insurance, he said, while Pioneer Park will cost $200 to rent and requires an insurance policy that will cost $5,000.

“There’s no more beautiful venue for highland games than Hovander,” Winchester said. “It was a pretty sad day when we had to take the vote.” Winchester looked into moving the games to the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds or the Deming Logging Show Grounds, but games organizers worried that they wouldn’t be able to get the word out to those who have been coming to Ferndale from across the state and British Columbia for 20 years.

Keeping the festival in Ferndale “is probably the best we can hope for,” he said. “We just need a sign where the entrance of Hovander is, to go across the bridge and make a left turn.”  Via partially bellinghamherald

 The Silver Beach Neighborhood includes the northern end of Lake Whatcom, where on both sides of the lake are Bellingham’s city limits.  Residents in the Silver Beach neighborhood enjoy one of Bellingham’s main recreation areas in Lake Whatcom, which is one of the largest lakes north of Seattle.  One can enjoy boating, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, and swimming on Lake Whatcom.

The Silver Beach neighborhood offers a range of housing options, from upscale, lakefront homes along North shore Drive to rental properties and single-family housing further off the lake.

One of Silver Beach neighborhoods attraction is the recreation of Bloedel-Donovan Park with a public boat ramp, supervised swimming, community programs and events.

Silver Beach has only one small retail area within the neighborhood which has a small grocery store/mini-mart. At this retail outlet there are also a couple of other small retail stores.

However, Silver Beach residents can enjoy shopping at nearby Barkley Village shopping center, with a Haggen supermarket for groceries. Barkely Village also includes several restraunts, small shops, banks, a WECU branch, several offices and boutiques.  Barkley Village is currently in a huge commercial boom of construction activity.

 Another retail development within a short drive from the neighborhood is the Sunset Square shopping center, with a K Mart Discount Store, Rite-Aid Pharmacy, The Fair Market grocery store and a multiplex shopping center.  The Lowe’s Home center was added a few years ago along with a bunch of restaurants.  This area is really growing with the addition of Banner Bank, WECU and a new shopping complex since this post was added.

The Fred Meyer Shopping Center and Lakeway Center, both of which include major supermarkets, are easy stops along Lakeway Drive, one of the main routes into the city’s core.  Trader Joe’s is now open as well off of Alabama St. and James St.

The schools that kids attend depending largely on where they live in the neighborhood. Most children attend Silver Beach Elementary School, which is located within the neighborhood.  Some kids though do attend Geneva Elementary School who lives south of Alabama St.  The same division is used for middle school kids in that kids south of Alabama attend Kulshan Middle School and ones on the north side of Alabama St. attend Whatcom Middle School.  High School students south of Alabama St. attend Bellingham High School and ones north attend Sqaulicum High School.

The Silver Beach area also has it’s own site with the Silver Beach Neighborhood Association.

  I listened into CNBC for a couple of hours today around the time of the Fed made their announcement.  I normally listen to the CNBC early in the morning before going into my office, but really wanted to get a good fix on what’s going to happen in 2007.  I’m glad I listened in; there were a lot of Economists, Homebuilder and Journalist weighing in on today’s decision by the fed.

The good news was that the fed decided to leave the rates alone today at 5.25%. The fed has left the rate alone since June 2006 and prior to that raised the rate 17 times in a row.  There are 11 board members that vote on rates and the vote came out 10-1.  CNBC asked a former fed governor why the one vote for a raise and he said that particular governor has voted yes for the past couple of times and probably wanted to be consistent.

The only change in the language that the fed used today was in reference to our industry.  The fed had said that “because of the substantial cooling in the housing market, they will leave rates alone at this time”.  The general consensus was that not only will the fed leave rates alone, they will probably lower rates .25 % by May and probably another .25% by the end of 2007.

With that said…it really all depends on the economic growth rate and what happens with inflation.  But for now the biggest worry with the Fed seems to be the housing market and what’s going on with it.  They realize that the housing sector is a big player in the overall market, so they want to watch what they do with rates.  Most analysis agreed today that inflation seems to be in check and in fact we might have a slight slowing of GDP in 2007.  The same analysts are saying the housing sector will slowly recover by the end of 2007.

My guess is that the fed rate will be at 4.75% by this time next year. And we should be in a normal market by 2008.  We need to work the inventory of new homes on the market down to a more comfortable rate before we really start to see a recovery.  Speaking of new homes, CNBC interviewed Robert Toll, CEO of Toll Brothers, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders.  Toll says, “Were dancing on the bottom”.  He also mentioned that in the market his company build in traffic has been up 20-30 percent and deposits on homes to purchase have slowly started to go up.

I think the main thing I’ve tried to do as a Realtor during the past 18 months, is not listen to the Negative Chatter. After 14 years in this business and another 12 years prior to that on the building side…one needs to be careful about listening to the negative talk or Negative Chatter. The bottom line is, people are always quicker to spread bad news, before good news.  The problem with listening to the negative people is that if you’re not paying attention on what’s really going on in the market, you can miss a buying opportunity!
I think right now is a great buying opportunity with interest rates at 6.11 percent, higher than normal inventories, winter time markets generally are better buying opportunities and of course were in a buyers market. 

The local Puget Sound area is getting a lot of attention nationally from real estate investment firms.  Investors from around the region and other parts of the country are starting to realize this area is a hot bed for long term growth and investment.

People are expecting good things from investing in the local Puget Sound real estate market. Recently The Wall Street Journal was quoted about the nation’s commercial real-estate market, noting that population and job growth is prompting investors to take a fresh look at the Puget Sound area.  It cited a PricewaterhouseCoopers study of 45 areas in which Seattle ranked fourth behind New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles for investment.

As recently as last Thursday, a Portland, Ore.-based real estate investment firm purchased Paine Field Business Park. An executive there talked about our population growth and wanted to be part of what he expects will be a thriving area.

The deal wasn’t a huge one - $9 million and change. But there have been others of much larger proportions. This fall, a Lynnwood office building sold for $39 million to a San Francisco real estate investment firm. Two years ago, it had been picked up for $13 million.

Before that, a Chicago firm paid more than $39.5 million for Cosmos Lynnwood Center.  Office buildings weren’t the only big sales in Snohomish County. Apartment complexes were even more popular to outside investors.

In February, On the Green at Harbour Pointe sold for $69 million to an investment firm. In June, complexes in Everett, Lynnwood and Mill Creek sold for a combined $38 million. In October, Walden Pond apartments in Everett sold for $31 million. In November, Crystal Cove and Silver Lake Heights in Everett sold for a combined $53 million. Most sales were to outside investment groups. Via Heraldnet.com

Deals like these are usually not a big deal individually, but when it’s one deal after another, that’s something to take notice of.  Investors from around the country are buying up property all over Western Washington from Bellingham, WA to Portland, Oregon.  These people are putting their money where their mouth is.

All you have to do is look around the Bellingham area and one can see all the Commercial activity going on in Fairhaven, Barkley Village, Bakerview, Cordata and of course downtown Bellingham.  Good solid investments in a high quality area is going to naturally attract investment no matter where that money is located.  Real estate investment company’s want to be positioned where the next best markets are going to be.  Looks like a lot of that is going to appear right here in the Puget Sound region.

Jerry Campbell - Muljat Group - Bellingham, WA - Bellingham Real Estate