ALopez

My partner and I moved to Bellingham in 2023 from the east coast. After a frustrating process searching through dozens of rental listings, we finally found a single family rental in Lettered Streets that met our needs. Fast forward 6 months, and our landlord told us they were selling the property and would not renew our lease. We tried to purchase the house prior to listing, but had difficulty working with the owner and couldn't find agreeable terms. The owner eventually put the house on the market and it sold quickly for over asking and we moved out. It would have been great if Bellingham had a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase that might have provided more structure and protections for us as we negotiated the purchase negotiations with our landlord.

We had to find another rental, this time in a duplex in York. Finding a rental was difficult because rentals are in short supply, a lot of the rentals are geared toward students, and a lot of rentals are in really poor condition. We ultimately found an off-market rental that met our needs through a friend of a friend. We got lucky, but I can see how informal rental markets through friends and acquaintances can be fraught for housing discrimination and create barriers to access. We're hoping this rental will be more stable than our last and that we won't have to move again so quickly.

We initially considered purchasing a home instead of moving into a new rental, but the housing market is so tight right now, we couldn't find anything with the deadline for move-out due to our landlord selling our rental.

We would like to see more multifamily rentals (or condos) in close-in neighborhoods in Lettered Streets, Sunnyland, York, Columbia, etc.