Picture looking at a list of your favorite albums/CD's/8 Tracks (what ever age or level of technical ineptness you find yourself currently). There's the one you ALWAYS talk about, always are telling friends about, always the one you go to for the peace, the celebration of it.

If all the hamlets that made up Bellingham were your music collection, Fairhaven tends to be that album we're asked about when people look for homes in Bellingham.

Part of the allure is the mystery... when does Boulevard magically turn into South State Street? How is it that Fairhaven came to be before Bellingham, as it's considered Bellingham? Is it really an hour until I can be seated for breakfast? Can you really consider it breakfast at 11:30?

Fairhaven's edges blur into the surrounding neighborhoods of South Hill, Edgemoor, Happy Valley, and Chuckanut, but the feeling of when you know you're in Fairhaven is quite visual. It's the Firehouse Cafe , converted, and home to a great performing arts venue. Coming up over the hill, and seeing the Ferry Terminal, past the homes that, of late have been selling in less than 60 days (over 60%).

If ever there were parallels, adages, or parables to be pulled from the draw, the magnetism of Fairhaven, they'd have to be regarding the line a mile long to get in, to breathe in part of Whatcom County that really put our mecca on the map here. It's the festivals, the art boutiques, the Chrysalis, the view of the San Juan's, the cheap seats for watching how the Bellingham Marina is going to turn out, the perch you can forecast how the wind is going to treat the Lummi Ferry this time around.

Your options are endless. Which is sadly where the analogy ends for Fairhaven and Real Estate. Currently there are less than 10 homes, and less than 40 condos on the market through the Northwest Multiple Listing service, though more are making their way onto Craigslist, as are more sellers looking to try their hands at a tough profession at this date. The number of rentals in the area is growing strictly from the fact that though the prices of homes at this point are low, as are interest rates, the uncertainly of the future and the melee strewn across the front page of every paper reports a national slowdown.

The market around Fairhaven teaches Whatcom County a valuable lesson about where you get your news from: there's a grain of salt to be taken from basing Real Estate opinion on the Associated Press, and it's a fact Fairhaven, Bellingham, and the Pacific Northwest as a whole has been faced with the last years. While homes nationally had been on a decline, and Bellingham was experiencing growth and profit, local papers based their "weather opinion" on a national scale.

"It's always sunny in Fairhaven." It's a quote friends who live there beam with a grin, when I ask about the weather before a cookout, a night out on the town, or a festival that we're experiencing from a spectator's point of view because I forgot to sign us up for the Ski to Sea in time. And with the demand for Fairhaven homes built a hundred years ago starting in the high $200's and low $300K's, wouldn't it be a great report to read about that over your morning joe?

With a lot of well-planned growth for Bellingham as a whole, and tourism fueling the fires for the trip there, the draws of our area are going to grow. But as it did with Bellingham, it's all going to start with Fairhaven.

If you think a home in Fairhaven is something you'd be open to discussing, feel free to e-mail me directly @ chris@buyertours.com and we can take a few moments to talk.

Chris McNamara BuyerTours Realty, LLC Chris@BuyerTours.com 360-303-1034