Bellingham
Where it is
Bellingham sits on Bellingham Bay in Whatcom County, on I-5 between Seattle and Vancouver and a good deal closer to Vancouver. The Canadian border is a short drive north. Mount Baker is off to the east, and on a clear day you can see it from a lot of the town. West across the water are Lummi Island and the San Juans.
The city was put together in the early 1900s out of four separate towns, Whatcom, Sehome, Bellingham and Fairhaven, and you can still feel it. There is a downtown, and then further down the bay there is Fairhaven with its own brick main street, and each of them behaves like the centre of town.
Western Washington University sits on Sehome Hill above downtown. It brings students, faculty and a steady rental market with it. Down on the water, the Port of Bellingham is slowly turning the old Georgia-Pacific mill site into the Waterfront District, which is opening up a piece of downtown shoreline that was industrial for generations.
The parts of town
Around downtown are the older neighborhoods: the Lettered Streets, Columbia, Sunnyland, Sehome. These are mostly Craftsman houses and bungalows on streets you can walk.
South of downtown is the Southside, which means South Hill with its steep streets and bay views, Happy Valley behind it, and then Fairhaven. Past Fairhaven is Edgemoor, where the lots and the houses get bigger. Keep going and you are on Chuckanut Drive, and Chuckanut is houses in the trees above the coast.
North, around Barkley and Cordata, is where most of the newer building has happened. Condos, townhomes and subdivisions, close to the big stores along Meridian.
East is Lake Whatcom, which is a place to live and also the city’s drinking water, so the rules about building near it are tighter than they are elsewhere. South down I-5 is Lake Samish, which is smaller, quieter and outside city limits (Derek is president of the community association there).
The housing
A lot of Bellingham’s housing is old by West Coast standards. You get Craftsman houses and bungalows near the centre, post-war houses further out, and condos and townhomes mostly downtown, in Barkley and up in Cordata. Bay views and the older streets near downtown and Fairhaven carry a premium.
On the older houses, inspections matter more than usual. Expect to look hard at the wiring, the plumbing, the foundation and the sewer line, and expect to find that a previous owner did some of the work himself. On the hills, pay attention to drainage and retaining walls. If you are paying for a view, go and stand at the actual windows in winter when the leaves are down, and ask what could be built or grown on the lot below you.
If you are buying near the university with the idea of renting it out, the city registers and inspects rentals and has its own rules about how a house can be used. Read those before you run your numbers.
Some people look at all this and decide they would rather build. Derek has that conversation a lot, and there is a separate page on land and new construction.
Outdoors and the water
The outdoors is why a lot of people live here. Whatcom Falls Park is on the east side of town, with the creek, the falls and a lot of trail in the woods. Lake Padden is at the south end with a path all the way around it that gets used every day of the year. Galbraith Mountain, on the southeast edge of town, is mountain bike trails, and it is a big part of why people who ride end up moving here.
Along the bay, the South Bay Trail runs from downtown through Boulevard Park to Fairhaven, part of it on a boardwalk out over the water. From Fairhaven the Interurban Trail carries on south toward Larrabee State Park. People keep boats at Squalicum Harbor and paddle off the beaches. In winter the Mount Baker Highway takes you up to the ski area, and in summer the same road takes you hiking.
You do pay for it in weather. Winters are grey and wet and they go on for a while. Summers are dry and mild, and they are why people put up with the winters.
Getting around and schools
Day to day you will mostly drive. I-5 runs straight through town, and the WTA buses cover the city and do a good job around the university. Plenty of people commute by bike, helped by the trails and not helped by the hills.
For travel, Amtrak Cascades stops at the station in Fairhaven, and the Alaska state ferry leaves from the terminal close by. Bellingham International Airport is on the north side of town with a limited set of routes. For anything else it is Sea-Tac or Vancouver, and Vancouver means crossing the border.
Schools are Bellingham Public Schools. The three main high schools are Bellingham, Sehome and Squalicum, and there are a few private and Montessori schools in town as well. Attendance boundaries move, so look up the specific address with the district before you get attached to a house because of a school.
Who it suits
Bellingham suits people who want trails and water close to the door and still want a real town around them, with a university, a hospital and a train station. A lot of our buyers are coming from somewhere else, and it goes best for the ones who can work from here or already have work lined up. It is harder on people who need a big-city job market in person, or who know they do badly without sun in January.
If you are moving here from somewhere else, tell us what you are looking for. Or see what is for sale.