EP: 0044 - The Pros and Cons of Living in Bellingham with Dani Colito

Considering a move to Bellingham Washington? Dani Colito has been sharing insights into Bellingham on her Youtube channel, and joins The Bellingham Real Estate Podcast to further discuss the pros and cons of living in Bellingham.

The main pros highlighted include the areas natural beauty, abundant outdoor recreation, and relatively mild winters, while the cons included the higher cost of living, rainy weather, and lack of major entertainment options. The discussion provides insights into what attracts people to the Bellingham area as well as some of the challenges of living here.

You can reach Dani at danicolito@johnlscott.com. You can also find a link to the pros and cons video referenced in this podcast here.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Bellingham Real Estate Podcast. I'm Paul Balzotti. I'm here with Dani Colito. Welcome, Dani.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yes.

And today we are talking about the pros and cons of living in Bellingham. Yep. And what prompted me to want to do this podcast with you is you did a top five. Pros and cons of living in Bellingham video. you know, there's a lot of realtors who've done these pros and cons videos, but I thought yours was really good.

maybe the definitive top five pros and Cons of Living in Bellingham video that's out there, but, But I wanted to, I thought it'd be fun to discuss some of those pros and cons in more detail. I'll give you some more of my thoughts of the video, and, and then, you know, we could just take it from there.

So starting off with. Well, let's let's back up a little bit here. So, we both have our own backgrounds, right? I'm from Seattle. Originally moved up here. I've been up here over 20 years. I've been in real estate here over 20 years. tell everybody your background a little bit because your background influences the pros and cons.

It does? Yeah. The background and where I come from really influenced it because it was really my perspective, my five top pros of living here and my five negatives of living here. And when I was making the video, I was really thinking, like, I wish I would have known all of this stuff before I moved here. So it was me taking an opportunity to give other people who are maybe thinking about moving here.

This is what I like about it. This is what I not so much. But at the end of the day, it's all really worth it. To live here is kind of how I conclude it. but my background. Oh, so I'm from the suburbs of Chicago. And then I went to Chicago. Is there like a Du Bears Yeah. yeah.

So from Chicago suburbs and then I went to college down in the city, and then I just really wanted to get out west, be by the scenic beauty. I'd been out here one time in my youth, and for some reason, I was just always really called to come back. I didn't internship at Nordstrom during my college days, and so then I ended up getting a job out here in Seattle working for them.

And so that's how it really brought me out here.

What what were you the downtown or the Bellevue investment. What. Nordstrom.

So yeah, I was both I was in downtown but then I was ultimately over in Bellevue. Nice. Yeah.

Cool. And then you work your way up here and you've been in real estate here for.

Four ish years now.

Yeah. Great. Okay. So so the first thing you brought up, the you're not that was the number one thing on your list was the scenic beauty of the northwest, which is which is hard to argue.

Yep. I think that's why it was my number one. Two. Yeah, yeah, it's the big thing.

So and you literally come in from Chicago. You I mean you had, you had you had trips over here. What. Just in general you're like, oh, the Pacific Northwest is beautiful. So let's. Yeah. That's it, that's it.

I had one trip here and I went to Oregon. I was in California, and I did the whole West Coast, and I think Washington was just a really underrated under talked about place of living. And I was really blown away by it. But where I'm from, everyone like wants to come out and move in California. So that's what I always heard, California.

And I was like, oh, I'll go move to San Francisco or LA and do fashion down there. And I really liked Washington, so it really drew me out here. Yeah.

So the scenic beauty draws you in, obviously. I mean, we're just getting through the fall colors changing. Beautiful time of year even now. even that's a nasty windstorm today. Yeah, as we're recording it, but, but what I wanted to add for sure about your top five, on the scenic beauty of of the northwest being a reason to move to Bellingham in the Pacific Northwest in general, but really what I mean, Bellingham and Whatcom County, you know, massive amounts of National park, massive amount of of, of hiking and everything like that.

But really the recreation, I would put the recreation itself and it's a category of its own because moving to Bellingham specifically, we have the inner urban trails, right? We have, just within the city itself. Yeah. And then just on the outskirts, outskirts of the city, you know, you have so many different, amazing different, you know, you have Oyster Dome, you have all these different, you know, hiking trails and then, Gailbreath Mountain, of course.

So, Mt Baker and Mount Baker, I mean, Mt Baker, I mean Bellingham, you know, if you moved to Bellingham, I would say Mount Baker is an amenity.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So people move here to have access to Mount Baker. Yeah.

Yeah. But then so it's kind of a double that's almost its own less because scenic beauty, you know, you you get to parts of Bellingham, you can look that direction and see Mount Baker. and there's the enjoyment of the beauty of that. But then there's the actual functional thing. It'd be nice to go skiing or hiking or whatever.

Totally. But, we are getting more and more people that, you know, that move here just for Galbraith Mountain, which is amazing.

Yeah, there are people who move here and they want to be on that mountain or really close to it. And I think the same goes with Mount Baker. I mean, just off of the video that I made, I had somebody reach out to me because they want to live closer to Mount Baker. So I got connected with them and helping them find a cabin that way.

Yeah.

And it's, it's interesting when you and then, you know, you get to go with mountain, you know, you'll have these neighborhoods around Galbraith Mountain. And I don't feel like this was a thing 20, 30 years ago. But you get into the neighborhoods off of Lakeway, off of U Street, where pretty much all those neighborhoods have these little trail accesses, even just that aren't even public access is, out of those neighborhoods.

And, and I would say I'm this is totally anecdotal, but maybe 20% of the people that live in those neighborhoods now are there for that access.

Oh, yeah.

And so, so the recreation is a is definitely a big, a big pull for Bellingham. And and then another thing I wanted to add that was not on your list is, and this is a personal thing for me, but, golf. Yep. You have I believe it's 12 or 13 golf courses in the general Bellingham walking County area.

Coming from Seattle, Seattle, you have just less golf courses per capita. So the golf courses are much more expensive. There. they're they're much, just harder to get on. So, like, you know, here you could get on to a fabulous golf course and very easily, almost at any time, and play in less than four hours. Whereas like in Seattle, it's it's more expensive, it's harder to get on decent courses and it's 4.5 hours or longer because everything's packed.

And so golf and then breweries, breweries. Come on. Do you not drink beer?

I don't drink, okay. Know I'm more of a wine person. And so I also love the access to wineries around here, especially the East side. but no, but they're everywhere.

I mean, do you go to breweries? Sometimes just in.

Social. I go to breweries and I think people love them so much too, because you can bring your dogs and you can bring your kids.

Yeah. Yes. And so and so one of the, one of your other top fives, you talk about community and and to me, the breweries are interesting because they do bring in more of a sense of community. there's so many breweries here. It's kind of like a band now. some of the best breweries really in the nation for certain types of beer, like IPAs and, and, you know, structure is coaltion boundary Bay, wander the, the list goes on.

but, you know, you go to these places and you have, you know, the trivia nights, you have, you know, dog friendly, most of them you have the, you know, maybe some one of them is kind of a soccer one. One of them is kind of a sports one. A couple of them have no sports. but it's really a gathering place for a lot of, a lot of locals.

And, and it doesn't hurt that, you know, and that it's fantastic craft beer, too.

And it's nice that they're outside. And I feel like they know I love indoor outdoor. Yeah. Indoor outdoor. And they like put themselves in the neighborhoods and, but I love the food trucks too. Yes. Yeah.

And then you know, and then they have more and more of them have any nonalcoholic beers.

They do. And they'll have cider.

And ciders and wines. So whatever, whether you drink or not drink, it's just a fabulous amenity to Bellingham to have these places, you know, all the different breweries here and it just keeps growing.

So you know how many we have. Do you know how many we have?

You know, I last I checked, I believe it was something. It was north of north of 12 to 15, somewhere in that range. maybe it's closer to 15. but you're talking about six or 7 or 8, of, you know, the really the best breweries in the, in the greater area. And I really think when you go from bend to Portland to Seattle to Bellingham, those are for the areas you think of.

When you think of, you know, some of the best beer really in the country. So, yes. So those are definitely stuff. Yes. Beer and golf. sorry, not sorry, but those are good pros and All right. So what else do we got? We also had, the climate being mild. Yes. As, as a, as a peak for Bellingham.

comparing that, tell me compare that to Chicago a little bit. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the weather in Chicago was a huge reason why I left, like just endless memories of, like, wiping the snow off my car and then shoveling the driveway. And my dad would never buy a snow blower, so we just. I think that's what it is like. The PTSD sounds like.

You want to get it. So that's where.

Yeah. Strong hard worker.

Yeah, exactly. Your work ethic.

He's so stubborn. But the snow I would say the weather from where I come from I would call it harsh. Like the winters could be really, really harsh and then the summers could be really harsh. And we would have heat waves and 80 degrees and 90 degrees for just months. And, my parents actually moved out here to, to retire.

And that was a big thing for them was the weather. so for here, for me, it's just like it's in the 40s and the 50s in the winter. So it's very mild. you don't have to be like scraping off your car all the time. And I think it maybe snows in Bellingham. I don't know, like a week or two.

We don't get that much. Yeah, in the winter. So it's not that hard on your car. It's not that hard on. I know it's probably good for your house too. And your body and everything.

Yeah, I think you're right. I would, I would think that's fair to say. I usually say that there's 1 or 2 weeks of snow and ice. Yeah. You know, every winter we tend to get that, you know, I think there's one winter I can think of in the last ten years where there was none. But then, oh, a couple where there was multiple.

Weeks more, I feel.

Like. Yeah, more like we've.

Been getting more lately.

Yeah, but you're still looking at the bulk of the winter where you're not. And snow and ice.

Yeah, it's just rain.

Whereas in Chicago, the bulk of the winter you are in snow and ice. Is that fair to say? Correct.

Yeah. Like vivid memories of taking my snow gear to school, which for my kids, they think that's like the best sounding thing ever. They think that's amazing. but it's a pain. It's like a pain in the butt.

So true true, true, true.

Nice hair.

So mild climate. And then the last positive I wanted to talk about of we're not going to cover all of them. But the last positive I definitely want to cover was no traffic. You said no traffic, which is again is a relative concept, right?

I feel like I should change that to like a little traffic or a small amount of traffic, because we do have a little bit of traffic. We have a growing population. I think our population has grown a little quicker than maybe like our infrastructure was ready for. So there has been some traffic lately around like 530. I notice it for 30.

but it just it doesn't compare to bigger cities.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that not only is there less traffic in general, but also the way that I think Bellingham is set up, is, you know, I think that let's say you live in West Seattle, you know, there's really when that bridge was down, it was, you know, it was a massive endeavor for everybody to get out of West Seattle.

what's nice about the way Bellingham is set up is the freeway, obviously is cutting through it, but then there's really anywhere you want to go. There's kind of five different ways to get there, and there's 2 or 3 that are almost the same. So even if during quote unquote traffic hour, if you're if you're trying to avoid, let's say, Sunset and Lakeway and Meridian, which are maybe your three corridors, that gets some traffic during traffic hour, you could you could kind of work your way around it.

And, you know, maybe you add maybe a ten minute drive turns into a 15 minute drive, but it's not like it's.

Not an hour. No. Yeah. No no no no no.

And even in even, the freeway, you know, if there's an accident, of course, you know, it's not as wide as some parts of the state. so then you could, you could quickly have some traffic there if there's an accident. But if there's no accidents, there is almost never pretty much from North of Everett. I mean, that's really the only you either have to have an accident or you'd have to have, some sort of construction happening in order to have actual traffic on the freeway between Mount Vernon and Canada.

I mean, would that be fair to say so?

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we just had a mudslide last week. Yeah. But other than that. Yeah, yeah.

Not really up in a day. Yeah. So, so I agree on the, the lack of traffic being a very good, positive Bellingham. But you know, I think we did need to add an asterisks there that that there's some traffic.

There is some. Yeah. There's mislead.

Yes. Yes. Okay. So let's touch on so some of the positives you know of course was the seat was the scenic beauty. All the recreation here. I brought up the beer and golf to, to get more of the positives. You can watch her video, but let's, let's cut some negatives. on the same note as the mild climate, we had rain in clouds, which is which is a legitimate thing.

There's definitely people who who, you know, potentially don't live here because of that or. Yeah, move because of too much rain and cloud. When you compare that to, to Chicago, would you say that it's cloudier and rainier here? Over. No. I mean, yes.

Yeah, for sure it is. It's it's like it's not even the rain. It's the gray and it's the clouds. Yeah. I mean, I don't even own an umbrella and I think when I moved here, I thought that everybody was rolling around with umbrellas because I pictured it in my mind. The way that it's put out there, that it's just raining all the time.

So it's not it's not raining all the time, but it is gray. And so you do need to like, go on a little vacation in January or get a vitamin D lamp, or take vitamin D supplements, like there are things that you can do to combat it. So it's not the end of the world, but it's just it's gray.

Yeah, yeah, I think the gray I mean, the more cloud cover, for more parts of the year, obviously we have fabulous summers and and spring is and you can get these sunny days of course, any time of year, but definitely more cloud cover. I would say that, on the, on the weather thing, the with the rain, I think that what a lot of people don't know that you kind of just touched on was it tends to rain for like today.

For example, when we were filming this, it was rainy and windy this morning. And then we looked out the window and it's sunny with a rainbow right now. Yep. And so it tends to if we ever have a day where it's raining all day, everyone's like, wow, this is bad, you know?

Yeah, well it.

Tends to not. It tends to rain for a couple of hours. Then a lot of times in the afternoon it'll break up for a few hours. And so in the fall in the winter and in the spring we'll kind of have these mixed days a lot. so, you know, for better or for worse, which for a golfer like me, you know, you can then, you know, or anybody doing any sort of recreation if you just want to go for a run or a bike ride, you can kind of find a few hours most days to where you can still get out and do things.

Oh for sure. And then I think I heard the saying here, there isn't bad weather, there's just bad gear. So you just have to have a really good point.

Yeah, we.

Have lots of it here.

Yeah, yeah. You get those, you get all those mountain bikes that have like they're like they got the big fat tires for when they're going in the mud and.

The jackets and yeah, yeah I see people running in the rain, biking in the rain and everything.

No doubt. And you also touched on something else. If you're fortunate enough to be in a position to travel or to be a snowbird, there's I mean, so many people here go to Palm Springs, go to Arizona. Yeah. You know, for little chunks of the winter or for a little airport. Yeah. Because you go from going ham, you can go right from Birmingham to LA, you can go right from Bellingham to Mesa, you know.

So you can.

You can do these.

Nonstop trips. Oh is it nonstop to Palm Springs too right. Yeah. It does. Yeah.

So except for I think they don't go in the summer. But other than that. Yeah.

Which makes sense. Yes. So so you're basically have these nonstop trips to, to sunny locations, which is if you can afford to do that, it's a fabulous lifestyle to be able to go down there and for chunks of the winter, so absolutely, that's kind of a couple negatives that you can kind of work with. And then you also touched on the lack of entertainment.

And you know, I think that and you meant that as far as like we're just not a large city. So we don't have.

Yeah, we don't have the big venues. And when we do have I was a big music person. Still am love going to concerts. So when we do have like I don't know, maybe some bigger names who want to come here, it's like on a Thursday night or a Wednesday night, like they're not coming here on a Friday or Saturday.

But we do have Vancouver, you know, which I do love going up there for shows. and then we do have Seattle get a hotel. It's fine. But we don't have those big names coming here. Yeah, yeah. And we have, like, we have a really cute downtown and we have a couple, maybe a few good music venues, but nothing big that would even allow somebody like that to come here.

But that's kind of the quaint nature.

You're not going to get Taylor Swift in Bellingham.

You're not getting a Taylor Swift snow. We can hold her. Yeah, that's true.

I think, when I think about the entertainment side of things, you know, coming from Seattle, I on balance, I actually think I don't necessarily look at it as a negative. And I'll tell you why is so we have small things like the Bellingham Bells. Right? So I would never have been going to a bowling bell's game if I lived in Seattle.

I wouldn't care. I would only go to a mariners game. But there's kind of a community charming thing about going to a, you know, a college level. Minor league.

Level. Yeah, we like this ball game.

Yeah, yeah. And so and then even, I have a friend who moved up here who, who's really into all sorts of different, you know, local bands and kind of smaller bands and, you know, and he took me to a couple shows with like in super small venues of these bands that are have decent followings. Again, things I maybe wouldn't do if I lived in Bellingham and so I think that we have these kind of, you know, small and I've seen Ben Folds in Mount Baker that you can see him at Baker Theater, you can see.

So you, you get you kind of push yourself to maybe see some, kind of smaller city entertainment, which can be just as cool sometimes. And then, but, you know, going to Seattle, you know, jetting down there hour and a half drive, most of the people who live in the greater Seattle area, you know, to get into those places, it's 45 minutes for them.

You know, if you live in a wooden ville or Bothell or you live in like Burien or whatnot, you know, maybe not Berrien, but, you know, if you live in these outskirts of the greater Seattle, where I'm sure if you're gonna live in the outskirts, a suburb of Chicago, getting in is still kind of an ordeal. So it's only like, oh, it's not that bad to bomb down to Seattle.

No, it's not bad. And it's fun. It's an experience. I feel like like I am going to a concert. And so I have a friend coming into town, and so we're making a whole thing out of it and getting a towel, and it'll be super fun.

Yeah. And you can also you could do the train to if you want to really like, not drive and run around. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. So all right so but you that was one of the negatives you added. And then I think probably the last one that I want to touch on because we are realtors is cost of living.

Yeah. so and cost of living is another relative kind of nuance thing. Right. But Bellingham no doubt is, is, I think from a national average standpoint, an expensive place to live. what was your what was your kind of analysis on that.

Well I so I have a brother, he lives in Atlanta. So you know if I compare it to him our gas is more expensive, our cost of living is more expensive with housing and things like that. But in Chicago, I would say our cost of living is higher compared to there. But then their property taxes are just out of control and people are leaving Illinois because of the high property taxes.

So I think that even though we do have a higher cost of living, our gas is more expensive, our food is more expensive. People are finding creative ways to combat it, like gardening or having electric vehicles, or living close to town where you're riding your bike. and I think it's a pay off for the recreation that we get for the scenic beauty that we get.

But yeah, it is a little bit more expensive to live here. We live on the water. It's a college town, and there is a bit of a pay off to live in here.

Yeah, yeah. And, and I think that, we've always stayed relatively less we're still it's still less expensive than Seattle for sure. And and with more and more people who can work remotely. I although there's, you know, there's the push to go back to the office, there's still, without a doubt, a much higher percentage of people, professionals that can work from home.

I just and the way Bellingham is set up, the infrastructure wise, it just seems like something where if people are waiting for it to become less expensive. you know it's, I just don't see it happening. you know, it's, there's just the quality of life that we were talking about with the, with the scenic beauty and the, and the breweries and the golf that I'm so happy about.

No, but, you know, all of the benefits of the area in comparison to a bigger city. Yeah. you know, you're going to have affluent people retiring here, and then you're going to have professionals that continue to want to live here, even if they got to work remotely, and then some high paying jobs from the hospital, from the refinery, from, you know, other industry.

And, so it seems like just essentially because of the topography of the area, and the way the city of Bellingham really has mapped out living, you know, yes, they're going to they're trying to build more apartments. Yes, they're trying to build more multifamily to get more population in, but it's not going to solve the housing situation.

As far as you know, houses are going to be expensive here. And if you want to live near Bellingham, you know, it's just like living near Seattle and you got to if you can't afford it, you it's Ferndale, it's Sudden Valley, it's Lynden It's just like in Seattle. It's like most people, you know, they say they live in Seattle, but they live in Bothell.

They live in this place. They live in that place. It's kind of like, you know, that's kind of what's happening with Bellingham. Yeah. Is the suburbs are growing around Bellingham. did you live in a suburb of Chicago or did you live in Chicago proper?

Definitely a suburb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's funny because one of my best friends is from Chicago proper. And if I'm in public and I say I'm from Chicago, she'll call me out. She's like, no, you're not. It's very like a sensitive subject. But the suburbs of Chicago, the northwest suburbs, but just such a great, you know, we could hop on a train in high school and take the train on down to Chicago and I wish.

I kind of wish it was more like that. Like I wish we had a train that was, like, easier to take and go. Gone down there. But, just to have access to Seattle and have access to Vancouver. but I love it here. Like, I wouldn't trade this. It's just. So Chicago's a fun city, but, like, everywhere around it, it's very boring.

Like, we don't have mountains. We don't. You're not going to go kayaking or go do lots of fun stuff outside. So you're spending a lot of money to do things. So I think, you know, we do have that high cost of living, but you can be outside and doing recreation and not spending a ton of money on like, entertainment and things like that.

and have a really nice time living here and be very healthy too.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, we didn't even talk about that one. The pros is we have the cleanest, cleanest air and one of the clear. I think we're always rated in the top five for cleanest air for mid-sized cities in the country. So I didn't even know that. yeah. Yeah. So that's another little fun fact. Awesome. Yeah. So.

And you mean, you mean like the train system in the East Coast in general? It's just way more because there is a train that, you know, you could take down to Seattle, but it's not not that's not the infrastructure is not there the same way it is in the coast.

Yeah. Because I think the suburb system was set up out there. So you live in the suburbs and you work in the city. Yeah. And we're just not doing that anymore. Like, you know, there's a lot of people who maybe work in Seattle but are able to live up in Bellingham now. Yeah. so I don't think we necessarily need that system, but it was very convenient.

Yeah.

It's almost like you work from home four days a week. Then maybe you drive up to Seattle in your car once a week, and that's pretty much, you know what you do. Yeah. Yeah. And then if you work in Bellingham, you know, and you can't afford Bellingham, then, you know, all right, now, the commute in from just about anywhere is, is very reasonable in Whatcom County.

Oh, yeah. You know, whether it's Blaine, Birch Bay, ever, you know, you name it, depending on and all of those surrounding communities all offer their own kind of benefits, to, you know, to live in as well. Blaine and Birch Bay, we talked about rain, Blaine and Birch Bay. Birch Bay is in a rain shadow, so you get less rain if you're in Birch Bay or if you're out towards Anacortes.

and so, Yeah. So very good. Well, I think that that pretty much covers it. I don't want to cover every positive and negative, because I want people to go to your YouTube channel and check out your videos too. Yeah. because you've made some really cool ones. But, if you have more questions or interest in moving to Bellingham, please reach out to Dani.

Thank you for joining us, Dani Thank you. Thank you for watching or listening. You guys.