Border crossing activity in Whatcom County remains below prior levels, and that appears to be affecting retail spending in the county. Because the local retail market has long benefited from shopping demand from Canadian visitors, weaker cross-border traffic can have a measurable impact on taxable retail sales. The following graph shows cross-border traffic in 2025 relative to 2024. The overall drop in 2025 was 24.0% from the prior year. However, it does not appear that condi

When people talk about home prices in Whatcom County, they are usually talking about nominal prices, the actual dollar amounts buyers paid at the time. That measure matters because it reflects the market in real transactions. But it can be misleading across several years because the value of money changes. A 2025 dollar simply does not buy what a 2019 dollar bought. To look at the trend more clearly, I indexed the Whatcom County median sale price to March 2019 and then tracke

Lakeway Estates, a manufactured home community in Bellingham at 1200 Lincoln, was purchased for $41 million in 2024, and shortly after,...