If you’ve tried finding housing in Bellingham, you know the impossibility of actually deciding on your ideal living space. To fill the rest of you in, the vacancy rate (quantity of unoccupied or vacant apartments) in Whatcom is estimated around 1.8%, absolutely atrocious.

I’ve paid my dues in finding an apartment twice: once my incoming freshman year and last year when I slept in a friend’s living room for two weeks. Moreover, I’ve seen thousands of incoming or current Bellingham college students endure the same struggle and agony. No exaggeration, I’ve worked in student housing for the better part of a year now, thousands of students. I won’t say where I work, strictly for the sake of keeping your perception of my opinion objective.

So why is finding housing in Bellingham so impossibly complicated? What I’ve learned from working in the industry, city council meetings, academic and personal investigation are these four issues contributing to Bellingham’s housing crisis.

Overpopulation

So you found your roommate (or at least someone you can talk to in a coffee shop for an hour without killing), you start at Western in the fall, and every available place sucks. The larger context of this is that Bellingham has grown significantly in the last few years, over 4,000 more people live in Bellingham since 2010 according to a City of Bellingham report in 2015.A survey conducted by the University of Washington Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies in fall 2016 suggested that any market with less than a 3% vacancy rate is considered in crisis. With this increase in population most students flock to single family homes. Houses are significantly cheaper than apartments and groups of friends can save big by finding a nice house and landlord.

Broken Single-Family Homes

The traditional underserviced 5+ bedroom house can be occupied by as many as 8 students living in real or makeshift rooms. Most of these dwellings are owned by a variety of wealthy individuals with large profit margins renting to students and evading maintenance requests. The rest of these homes are either in the care of legitimate four-person families or local property management like Hammer Properties NW.

Interestingly enough, homes with more than three unrelated individuals are in violation of the law. But you won’t find the police banging down your door for these offenses. The city conducts independent inspections door-to-door style and you could just lie without them even knowing.

Now there are lots of really pretty homes in Bellingham, but every day I hear another story about mold in the walls, getting locked in a room, faulty electric outlets, crappy appliances and terrible repairs. With tattered homes losing popularity, apartments have emerged as the go-to option.

Apartment Pains

Apartments can have their ups and downs too. Some apartments receive the financial backing of big money corporations like Asset Campus Housing’s The Gather, The Scion Group’s NXNW, or Pacific Living Properties’s four complexes around WWU. All massive complexes with 400+ rooms who will often favor individual leasing practices, “by-the-bed,” but definitely touch the high side of rent costs with full-service amenities. Then there are the plethora of standard rental options, and these are just in the Western-Bellingham area: South Hill, Maple Park, Birnam Wood, Newport and New England just to name a few.

The complication that often arises with leasing, and especially pre-leasing, is misconception or misinterpretation. Consider for a moment what you actually see when touring a complex. Rarely will you ever step foot in an occupied apartment, it’s almost always a model unit and a well-practiced leasing agent like myself to guide you through the nicely decorated model.

Next time you leave a leasing office, do some independent research! You’ll be amazed what you can find out by asking passing residents, analyzing dense legal documents and investigating the reputation of an ownership company. Trust me.

Oversimplification

This may not be an issue for some, simplifying a process is typically a good thing. But you’d be surprised how many red-faced parents I’ve had to calm out of their rage upon learning their 18-year-old “sweetheart” signed a legally binding document for $8,500 over the course of 12 months without telling them. A good rule of thumb to follow- if it requires a social security number, read it. You will save yourself so much time and uncertainty about the outrageous number of things that can cost you monetary or emotional upheaval.

More than all that though, the availability of online leasing, roommate matching, and digital tours has perpetuated such an immediacy that finding and securing a place to live can take place in less than 30 minutes.

A 30-minute transaction for a one-year commitment… You should probably put some thought into this.