12 Reasons to move to Spokane, WA

Are you thinking of relocating to Spokane, Washington? Or maybe you are thinking about moving to Coeur d'Alene, but realize that the housing prices are the same there as they are in Seattle or LA. Well, you've clicked on the right blog because here are the top 12 reasons to relocate to Spokane, Washington.         1. Awesome Downtown Reason number one is our down town is actually pretty awesome. The streets are lined with historical buildings that house your favorite major brands like Apple, Nordstrom, Nike, and there's a ton of small businesses in coffee shops like Indaba, Atticus and Madeleine's to restaurants like Hunt, Sushi.com, Mango Tree. And they're just awesome. Down town isn't like your typical down town with tattoo parlors and all that kind of stuff. It's very vibrant and has only been getting better with renovations of Riverfront Park.     2. Affordable Housing Market Reason number two is that the housing market is still affordable. 2021 brought drastic increases to Spokane, roughly 24% in the last year. But compared to Seattle Los Angeles, which is where most people are moving here from, we're still an incredibly affordable place to live. The average home price is still under $400,000, and at this point, that will probably be gone in a year from now.     3. Affordable Office Spaces Reason number three, you should be moving to Spokane or your company should be moving to Spokane. Is that office space is still very affordable. Office space is running about $23 per square foot. And put that into perspective, in Seattle, it's about 65 in the Bay Area is about $90 per square foot. So maybe now that you can work remotely, you should move an office here to Spokane.It would probably just be cheaper to travel back and forth between Seattle or LA.     4. Interconnected Trails The fourth reason you should check out Spokane is because of the trails that are integrated into our city. Just like I took a walk today out on the Centennial Trail because it's super easy to do because it runs right through the middle of downtown pas most of the major office spaces where I work. So it's awesome to be able to step outside, walk along the river, and then just refresh your mind before going back to work.     5. Beautiful Lakes and Rivers Speaking of Rivers and water, the fifth reason is because Spokane has dozens and dozens of Lakes and Rivers between a one and a two hour drive downtown. Just pick a direction and you'll find some water somewhere. We're fortunate enough to be one of the places that are not experiencing droughts like the Southern States, and so if you like boating, fishing, or just want to have a place to escape when we get a couple of 90 to 100 degree weather days, this is definitely the place to be.     6. Awesome Ski Resorts And I'd say generally people are into being on the water during the summers, are also fans of being on the mountain in the winter, and you have a handful of options for skiing and snowboarding here. Our 6th reason is because we have five awesome ski resorts within a 90-minute drive. Whether Spokane is having a mild winter, which happens maybe 50% of the time, the mountains almost always have some snow. We're within a three hour drive at the Canadian border 90 minutes in Montana, so it doesn't take a lot of effort to find some snow.     7. Dope Waterfall Our 7th reason for moving to Spokane is because we have a dope waterfall right in the middle of town. We actually have the largest urban waterfall in the entire United States. You can get within about 20ft from it and see it from different viewpoints, and it's just super awesome. Beautiful feature we have here right in the middle of downtown.     8. Universities and Medical Schools If you're into education or you're looking for a not so huge city to send your kid to for College, you should definitely be checking out Spokane. We have five universities and two medical schools that all have satellite campuses within the University district, which can house upwards of 20,000 students per year, not to mention the main campuses that are spread out throughout the city. I myself have a rental in this neighborhood and have helped many parents buy rentals for their kids while they go to school instead of paying room and board let the students pay you for it. Rent is getting crazy and it's pretty easy to cash flow a house that you rent by the bedroom.     9. Best Tasting Beer The 9th reason to move to Spokane is beer. We have a lot of beer around here, and it's actually good. There are 30 plus breweries just in Spokane County alone, not to mention everything within an hour drive. There's even a craft brewery self guided tour where you can follow the trail and find out some of the most popular spots.     10. Wine Don't like beer. Well, that's all right, because the 10th reason you should move and maybe you're noticing a pattern here is we have nearly the same amount of wine tasting rooms as we do breweries. Washington is, I believe, the second largest producer of wine in the country behind California. So you Napa Valley folks won't miss out, I promise. There are around 900 wineries in all of Washington, and most of them on the east side of the state close to Spokane.     11. Cool Neighborhood And if you're moving to Spokane from Seattle or LA, you might be concerned about getting some of those same walkable neighborhoods or cool features in your neighborhood. But I promise you that you should move to Spokane for this 11th reason because we have super cool and beautiful neighborhoods of parks on parks I often jump to the South Hill where there's Comstock, Manito, PolyGen and Cannon Hill within like a half a mile to mile of each other can easily walk on nearly silent side streets between each one. But there are plenty of neighborhoods in Spokane that have the same feel with lots of young people and families that love to enjoy the neighborhood as well.     12. Lifestyle Lastly and I'm sure there are plenty of people who might disagree with this, but I know people that live busy lives in busy cities will agree or grow to learn with me that the life in Spokane is just better. Rush hour is just an hour. It's not six to eight hours a day. It's easy to find a home close to work. We have awesome music, art, dance, theater from amazing schools all the way from elementary to College.   Ready to Take the Next Step? If you wanna visit or feel like moving in here, I'll be more than happy to assist you.

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14 Things TO DO in Spokane, WA

Are you visiting Spokane or maybe thinking about moving here one day and thinking what is there to do? Well today, we'll be talking about some of the most popular places to visit in Spokane. Too many people are surprised, Spokane is actually the second largest city in Washington behind Seattle, so there's actually quite a bit to visit. And this list features many free outdoor activities to check out the beauty of what hides behind the skyline that you can see from the freeway.         1. Riverfront Park First up, we have Riverfront Park. Now, this would not have made the list about five years ago, but Riverfront Park has recently gone through a huge renovation that has brought a completely new life to it. Park used to be very attractive and honestly not the safest place to be at night, but now it's completely lit up with lights everywhere. The Pavilion has gotten a complete face lift and has an amazing light show every weekend where you can just lay on the grass and watch from down below. Or you can really watch from anywhere downtown because it just shines over the entire skyline.   It also features an ice skating ribbon, our famous looff carousel, the Garbage Goat, and of course, the Spokane River runs right through it. You can take a ride on the gondola and then head over to the huge playscape, our famous clock towers right over there.   Address: 507 N. Howard Street, Spokane, Washington Official site: https://my.spokanecity.org/riverfrontpark/     2. Spokane Falls The next attraction is just right across the street from Riverfront Park, where you can get up close and personal with the Spokane Falls. You can get up so close in Huntington Park that you can feel the spray of the water in the summertime. And it's honestly such a cool view between the rushing water and looking up at the Monroe Street Bridge. I've stood there many times in awe of it because it's just so massive and so hard to believe that it was built in 1911 purely by hand. This is also a relatively new feature to Spokane, as you couldn't really walk down this close to the water prior on nice paths that have cool arts cultures along the way.     3. Manito Park We are very fortunate to have one of the largest state parks in all of Washington right in our backyard. It's about 9 miles from downtown Spokane and for another great place to do some light hiking. But you can also fish and kayak here as well. You most likely find your way to the Bowl and Pitcher area where you'll cross the suspension bridge and be able to check out some of the huge rock formations in the river.   I highly recommend this for those that are looking for a little bit more nature. And if you want a harder hike, head over to the Deep Creek Canyon area because there's a lot more up and downs going on over there.   Address: 1702 S. Grand Blvd, Spokane, Washington Official site: www.manitopark.org     4. Riverside State Park/Bowl & Pitcher Aand so this park is just a five minute drive from downtown, and it's one of my favorite spots in Spokane, which I would probably say for a lot of these, but that one is very accurate. Manito is a huge 90-acre park that is located on the Lower South Hill, and it's home to the Duncan Gardens, Japanese Gardens, the Lilac Gardens, the Rose Gardens. It's even home to the best sledding hill here in Spokane, and it also has a huge pond in the middle of it. So plan to spend a few hours here just walking around enjoying the gardens. It's especially great in the summertime when all the flowers are in Bloom. I just think this is a truly great attraction in Spokane because I've been to a lot of other cities.   Address: 9711 W. Charles Road, Nine Mile Falls, Washington Official site: http://parks.state.wa.us/573/Riverside     5. Centennial Trail You could actually use this one to get between many of the other attractions because Centennial Trail is a 37 miles long trail that runs between Nine Mile Falls all the way to the Idaho border and then runs for another 24 miles beyond that on the North Idaho Centennial Trail. It cuts right through Riverfront Park and was built on old railroad tracks in Timber and Company Road. So it provides for a very flat and smooth ride the whole way. It's a great way to make your way from downtown Spokane to our next attraction.   Address: 9711 W. Charles Road, Nine Mile Falls, Washington     6. Gonzaga University So the campus at Gonzaga is located just on the northside of Spokane River on 150 acres of land that are just a short walk from downtown along the Centennial Trail right next to the Spokane River, just flowing right along it. The campus was founded in 1887, has become a center for Spokaneites to come together, cheer on the beloved Zags. And so the campus is really beautiful with multiple museums, beautiful cathedrals and brick buildings throughout. And the campus is also surrounded by some very historic homes that have become offices or student housing. One of those homes used to actually be the home of Bing Crosby and has become a Museum to showcase some of his memorabilia.   Address: 502 E Boone Ave, Spokane, Washington Official site: https://www.gonzaga.edu/     7. Mt. Spokane Summit Our 7th attraction is to take a drive to the summit of Mount Spokane. We are very fortunate in Spokane to have an amazing ski and snowboard park, but in the summer, it also makes for some great hiking and sightseeing. You can drive all the way up to the summit in the summertime, and you have your choice from over 100 miles of trails. Or you can see at least five lakes like from down below. It's a crazy size, so you can plan a weekend of camping up there, but you can go bike the trails, walk.   But if you don't even want your Lakes to get sore, you can literally just drive to the very top, take a look at the amazing view, and then drive back down. So it's absolutely for everybody.   Address: 26107 N. Mt Spokane Park Drive, Mead, Washington Official site: http://parks.state.wa.us/549/Mount-Spokane     8. Rocks of Sharon If you want to continue the leg burn from hiking or biking Mount Spokane, you can head to number eight, which is the Rocks of Sharon and the Dishman Hills Conservation Area. Spokane and local landowners have worked hard to preserve certain areas around Spokane, which has created a network of conservation areas that surround the city. One of those places happens to include the Rocks of Sharon, which is rated as one of the best hiking trails in all of Spokane. There are two main trails that guide you up to the top, where there are some fantastic views of the palace, and you get to sit at the top with some pretty massive humongous rocks.   If you're into rock climbing, this is a great place to do it near the city and get outside to do so. Every time I've gone, there hiking. There's always been people climbing up the rocks because they're seriously like a 100ft tall, so it seems like a great spot.   Address: 9399 S Stevens Creek Rd, Spokane, Washington     9. Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture Locals here call it the Mac, and it is the largest cultural Institute of its kind in the northwest has five underground galleries and with rotating exhibits, and the Mac focuses on regional history, visual arts, and American-Indian history as well. With more than 1 million artifacts in their collection, they will always have something new to go check out. You'll be in the Heart of Browne's Addition as well, so you can stop by and grab some food at the El Coeur Browne's Bistro and take a walk to Coeur d'Alene Park while checking out some of the Spokane's most historic mansions that line the streets of that neighborhood.   Address: 2316 W. 1st Avenue, Spokane, Washington Official site: www.northwestmuseum.org     10. Finch Arboretum This is a 65 acre nature reserve where you can scroll through and look at over 2000 labeled trees and shrubs. Among all the wildlife, Spokane many animals that are native to the area gather here so you can find a marmot, a deer, moose, wild turkeys and even some bull snakes, which are harmless, I promise. But admission is always free. They have many activities and festivals throughout the year, so it's easy to just stop by and go for a walk there as well.   Address: 3404 W. Woodland Blvd, Spokane, Washington     11. Bing Crosby or the Martin Woldson Theater For those who enjoy music, you can find your way to one of our amazing theaters, the Bing Crosby or the Martin Woldson Theater at Fox. Both of these theaters look very simple from the outside, but once you get in, they are incredibly beautiful. They've been super well maintained renovated over the years, but they have done such a great job of keeping the character from the early 19 hundreds when they were built. You can catch the Spokane Jazz Orchestra at the Bing or the Spokane Symphony at the Fox theater and hear how the theaters helped elevate the music to just a completely other level and to continue your night out, you can. After the show, you can head to the Davenport Hotel, grab a drink or some food and check out some more beautiful architecture from the early 19 hundreds.   Address: 1001 W. Sprague Avenue, Spokane, Washington Official site: www.foxtheaterspokane.com     12. Davenport Hotel If you get the chance to stay the night here, definitely do as a coveted place here in Spokane with some of the best service and amenities, but it's definitely okay to just wander the old Davenport building and explore some of the ball rooms as well. This is pretty much as luxurious as it gets here in Spokane, so it's definitely worth the time to stop by.   Address: 10 S. Post Street, Spokane, Washington Accommodation: The Historic Davenport Hotel     13. St. John's Cathedral As we've been discussing, Spokane is home to some amazing architecture, and if this is your thing, you should take the opportunity to visit St. John's Cathedral. It's very hard to miss. If you look south from the freeway, you squint your eyes just a little bit and you look for Batman. You'll find it.   But all jokes aside, regardless of religion or beliefs, it is truly an amazing experience to walk through this Church and see the stained glass. It's completely worth hearing the organ with over 400 pipes in it, as well as the Church bells are so huge that they had to build the Church completely around them because there was no way to bring them in through the doors.   Address: 127 East 12th Avenue, Spokane, Washington     14. Avista Stadium Built from scratch in under four months in 1958, Avista Stadium has grown and experienced renovations over the years. If anything has remained the same, it can be found somewhere in the general excitement and summer feel of watching a baseball game. Special game nights at Avista Stadium include a festive opening night and several fireworks celebrations.   You can catch the Spokane Indians playing between June and September for what feels like almost seven days a week. Those minor League teams seem like they just play nonstop, but games are super cheap to attend. Great place to spend a summer evening and you get to meet all of our awesome mascots, auto and all that good stuf   Address: 602 N. Havana Street, Spokane, Washington Official site: http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t486   Ready to Take the Next Step? If you wanna visit or feel like moving in here, I'll be more than happy to assist you.

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Complete House Hacking Guide

If you’re a young entrepreneur or someone that’s interested in real estate investing but maybe you don’t have the money, experience, or connections to jump in and buy your first deal - a great way to get started is by house hacking!  And a lot of times people wonder if this real estate investing strategy is possible here in Spokane and I’m here to tell you that I personally do it, I have many clients that do it and you can definitely do it in 2022.     What is House Hacking? House hacking is a term that I first heard on the Biggerpockets podcast and most traditionally it’s where you buy a duplex, rent out one unit and live in the other. Ideally, the rent from the other unit should cover most, if not all of your mortgage. Now, this was the case a couple of years ago before the market went through the roof and rents couldn’t catch up. 2020 was a harder year to find a house hack that would cover the majority of your expenses because rents were stuck due to moratoriums and rent increases usually trail behind a rising housing market by 12-18 months anyway due to lease terms and when they expire.    So we are just now starting to have a comparable rental market to the housing market again, which has been tough for many renters in Spokane experiencing a 20-30% increase in their monthly rent in some cases. But, the way around this was actually to not buy a duplex. Duplexes got really expensive over the past couple of years. You’re lucky to find one under $350K and with many of the “newer” duplexes, mainly anything built after 1970, being located in the valley, those prices were more like 450 up to 600 for a decent property. It just didn’t make sense to purchase one of these, especially using the recommended financing options that we will get into later.    The next best option was to purchase a triplex or even a four plex because usually the price to unit ratio would drop down quite a bit and you could generally get the same amount of rent out of each of those units as you would out of a duplex.    The biggest challenge being that it is a rare occurrence to find a triplex or fourplex even for sale and if they’re reasonably priced, they would get swooped up by an out of town investor.    Now, is it impossible? Definitely not. I just closed on a duplex with a buyer for under 300K, but they’re going to have to do some work over the next year to raise the rents to cover their expenses. You can definitely buy a cheaper multi-family property, but generally you’re going to need to do some work by raising rents, improving the property or a combination of both!    My recommendation for a lot of people and what I helped myself and quite a few people do this year was to house hack a single family home. I currently live in a 3 bed, 2 bath home where I live in the master bedroom on the second floor and my tenants live downstairs and share a bathroom between the two of them.    It’s basically like living in an up and down duplex, except I come downstairs and share the kitchen that has two refrigerators so I don’t even share that with my tenants. The only thing I share with my tenants is the kitchen and guess what? It doesn’t suck! But it’s because I’ve set up an environment for this to be successful and I’m going to show you how.    How to House hack a Single Family Home? There are 3 key things to do in order to have a successful househack of a single family home without killing your roommates. And I want to preface this by saying that I live with complete strangers. If you have friends that want to rent a room from you then definitely go that way, but I know that any time I’ve lived with friends in the past, they didn’t really stay my friends afterwards because you get to know them and their personal lives a little too well.    So the first thing to consider is your screening process. My application process is fairly intense but it’s my house, where I live and my girlfriend lives there as well so I need to make sure that I like the person, I feel safe with them in the house, and I feel like they’re not going to cause any problems down the road. You’ll discover that when you post a room for rent, you can’t post it on some of the bigger sites like Zillow so you’ll be stuck with Facebook and Craigslist.    Everyone thinks these are terrible places to find a tenant but it’s worked great for me so far. Just be ready for an overwhelming amount of messages on Facebook because you’re about to post one of the cheapest places to rent in the city and most people won’t read the description, they’ll just immediately push the “is this still available” button on facebook.    There’s no parties, no animals, and even quiet hours and I want them to know that from the beginning. Anybody who actually wants this themselves for a reasonable price, is going to be interested because sometimes even having your own apartment doesn’t allow for this with loud neighborhoods that you have to share a wall with.   Generally, I’ll have a copy and paste message that lets them know there is an application fee, I’ll be pulling credit, doing a full background check, calling their employer, and past landlords. If they’re okay with that, I will then send them a video walkthrough of my house and the room they’ll be living in. Once that’s done, I schedule a phone call with them to ask a few questions and get to hear their voice, hear about where they work, why they’re looking for a new place, what they like about the idea of living in my house, and so on. If that conversation goes well and I’m feeling good about it, at that point I will schedule an in person walkthrough of the house.    Now you would think that I would have a ton of showings to go through, especially because I don’t make them apply beforehand, but surprisingly most people won’t even respond back after the first message. I usually only show the house to 3-5 people before finding someone that I like and they like the house.    So, when they come over to visit, I get to talk to them face to face, learn more about them and if they’re still excited about the property I will send them an application through apartments.com. They fill everything out, apartments.com runs their credit and background check for me and then I can review all my applications in one spot.    Once I find the tenant that I want to except, I invite them back to the house to go over the lease in person. My lease is pretty intense. It’s a combination of standard lease forms as well as a list of house rules that they are required to sign and can be penalized for if they break them such as bringing excess furniture into the house, being noisy, having people stay the night, and so on.    Some people might find it crazy, but my house is incredibly quiet at all times, everyone gets along, and things stay clean because everyone understands the expectations. Honestly, it keeps me accountable for cleaning up after myself and I probably live in a cleaner house right now that I would if I didn’t have roommates!   The Business House hacking can be a business. I have clients who have purchase investment properties that are 6 or more bedrooms and run them like a hotel almost to get more cashflow and provide affordable housing at the same time.    In order to have happy tenants, which is especially important when you’re living with them, you need to give a little to get a lot back. My rooms are freshly painted, with new floors and fully furnished. They’re walking into a brand new room and don’t need to bring anything besides their personal belongings and some bedding. I provide a mattress, bedframe, dresser, and will be adding a desk soon. This is great for people that want to rent a room like this because generally they don’t have a ton of stuff, sometimes they’re only living in Spokane for a short period of time and don’t want to buy a bunch of stuff and when everything is in good condition, they are going to take care of everything much more.    Additionally, the kitchen and bathrooms are fully stocked with everything they would need. I provided dishes and utensils of all kind as well as paper towels, toilet paper, and soap.    Because of this, I can charge a premium. Many people think the amount I’m asking is a lot of money for a bedroom, but trust me, many people are fully ready to pay it for a clean, quiet space that they don’t have to worry about furnishing. Let’s get into the financials.    Finances Alright, so what you can actually expect from renting out bedrooms in a single family home here in Spokane?   Going into it, I first was nervous because I thought $500 per month was my cap. Out of curiosity, I decided to throw my rooms up for rent for $650 per month and was surprised by the overwhelming amount of interest.    I feel like this has also helped me find solid tenants because the people willing to pay this amount for a bedroom also realize the benefits of living in the house and don’t get stuck on the idea of sharing a house with other people. These people realize that the pros generally outweigh the cons, especially if you’re trying to keep housing expenses low.    So, overall my house currently brings in $1300 per month and my mortgage is $1350. I cover the water sewer garbage bill and we all split the electrical evenly. So even if I didn’t split the leftover costs with my girlfriend, I would only be out the door about $250 to $300 per month to live in my house. It’s not a perfect house hack, but I get the entire second floor of a 1900 sq foot home all to myself with the benefits of the two car garage and backyard for less than a quarter of what most people pay for a 600 sq foot apartment. I would say that’s a win!    And you can definitely do better than I do! As I mentioned before, I have clients who have bought 4-6 bedrooms houses or have even bought duplexes and rented out the bedrooms in their unit so that their cash flow goes up and gets them even closer to that zero dollars per month or even making profit.    Conclusion So, I think if finding a multi family property becomes exhausting or something you simply can’t afford, then finding a single family home that you can add bedrooms to is the way to go. You will not only be able to get into it for a lower price generally, but you will also experience more appreciation over the long term because it’s a single family home and you can use that to help move up into your dream house after you’ve bought a few legitimate rental properties using all that money you’re saving from house hacking.    Ready to Take the Next Step? If you wanna visit or feel like moving in here, I'll be more than happy to assist you.

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