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Hello, and welcome to the Spotlight Vancouver podcast.

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I am your host, Doug Varinas, and I am a licensed real estate agent in Washington and Oregon.

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And today, we are celebrating the 10th episode of Spotlight Vancouver, Washington.

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And let me tell you, it's an accomplishment because typically podcasts go seven episodes

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before they disband.

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So super proud of that.

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Today's episode, I'm going to be talking about affordable under-the-radar neighborhoods

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that I think are incredibly livable, they are safe, and they have a lot of potential

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for appreciation.

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And so I really think that these neighborhoods are great to live in and present a tremendous

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value right now, as opposed to the rest of the market.

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And so what I'm using as a value metric is going to be basically the median home price.

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Currently it is 500,000.

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Now there's always outliers, but we're going to get into some under-the-radar affordable

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and awesome neighborhoods.

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So let's get started.

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I'm going to share my screen here.

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And we are going to get right into it.

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I'm going to first up, I'm going to take you to the Northwest neighborhood.

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Now nobody talks about this neighborhood right up here in this little corner.

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It's a little bit south of Felida and, yeah, Lakeshore.

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And we're going to zoom in here because I love this pocket right here.

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So you're right on the Burbridge Creek here, and that kind of provides this barrier between

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this West Hazeldale neighborhood and Northwest Vancouver.

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So I love this neighborhood.

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The median home price here is a Scosh over five, I believe, currently.

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Again, there's always outliers.

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And what I really love about this neighborhood is this area around the Burney Drive up to

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Franklin Park here.

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You get a lot of other nice pockets here.

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This neighborhood is known for its, the Franklin Halloween and the Franklin Christmas house

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here by Franklin Elementary.

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And the neighborhood here, you get some great mid-century 70s and 80s homes here, but you

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also get a real strong sense of community.

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It's sort of anchored by Franklin Elementary, which has a great PTA.

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It's a small but mighty school.

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I have a lot of experience here.

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My daughter goes here.

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They have a Mandarin Immersion program.

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So it's just an incredible community, but you also get a wonderful neighborhood.

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Crime is low.

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It's pretty walkable.

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There's some busy streets here, and there's not sidewalks all the time.

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So, you know, be careful.

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But for the most part, because you have the elementary school and the park so close by,

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it creates just a really close community.

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And you are sort of out here.

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I wouldn't say it's easy access to transportation.

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Honestly, to get to the freeway, it is not that tough.

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And to get to shopping over here up in Hazeldale, or you can go to Uptown, not really hard to

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get to.

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So it's kind of tucked away here, and I just love this Northwest area.

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So my second neighborhood, the one that I didn't plan on doing, but I just have seen the

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median home price here go down quite a bit.

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So I wanted to include it.

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It's actually a neighborhood that is south of the Northwest neighborhood, so that's convenient.

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And it is this Carter Park neighborhood.

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I'm picking up all the other Papa Murphy's and stuff here.

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But Carter Park is an incredibly walkable neighborhood.

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It has sidewalks.

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It has not a lot of traffic.

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Has real good proximity to downtown and the Uptown area, close to transportation, older

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homes here, and presents an incredible value.

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I've seen the median home price here drop to, when I checked, I believe it was like

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450, which is unbelievable.

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I have trouble actually believing that statistic.

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Now again, depending on the home, you can go a lot higher, especially if it's remodeled.

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So a lot of these older homes, if they just go on the market because for whatever reason,

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maybe it's an estate sale, you can get kind of a deal on them.

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It's fully remodeled, expect to pay more, but even, I mean, these used to be 750 homes

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easily a couple of years ago, so the prices have come down quite a bit.

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Schools here are pretty decent.

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I don't have personal experience, but if you're in Carter Park, you either go to Halk or Lincoln.

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Both of these are okay schools.

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And so really it's that proximity to the Uptown area in the downtown and that convenience

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that makes these a real solid deal, I think.

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So our next neighborhood, we're going to go a little bit east here and we're going to

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check out a neighborhood that I stumbled upon not too long ago and it is this Oak Brook

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neighborhood.

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This is a really cool part of town that I just mentioned, like I stumbled upon it and

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was just really impressed with what was going on here.

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So a lot of trees, so this is Oak Brook Park here.

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This is a country club.

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And so again, you got some proximity to Burbridge Creek.

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Lot of wooded area here, which was really cool.

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Older homes again, but you know, we're talking 70s homes, very walkable, not a lot of traffic

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here.

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This Ogden area can be kind of spotty.

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And so I think Oak Brook stands out in this area because again, low crime, nice homes,

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walkable, close to parks.

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And then the median home price here is about 400.

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I think you can get homes here in the fives pretty easily.

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And so this neighborhood really stands out to me as kind of a hidden gem in Vancouver

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and something that I would be looking at if I was looking for a home, especially in that

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price range.

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I think it's a deal.

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So we're going to travel for our next one.

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We're going to travel a little bit east and a little bit south here.

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And I'm going to take you to this Cascade Park area and I'm going to include two neighborhoods

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here, zoom in a little bit.

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And they are the River Ridge neighborhood here and Mountain View here.

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And to be honest, you can include this entire Cascade Park area.

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Again, prices have come down here.

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I've seen some deals in the high boards here that are incredible.

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I saw one in this area that came back on the market, a West pending came back, couldn't

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believe the prices here.

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Even these tend to vary as well with the homes condition.

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But if you want to get one that's a little bit that needs some cosmetic work, I think

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this area is excellent.

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I'm going to include Lewis and Clark Woods here as well, Bella Vista, all this neighborhood

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here, an older neighborhood, very walkable.

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It's pretty common to see people walking their dogs, walking for exercise, you know, when

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they got their coffee.

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It can be a little bit older, but like as far as the population goes.

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But there's also really good elementary schools, River Ridge Elementary.

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You have access to parks here, Bella Vista Park, Bridalwood Park, Cascade Park, a lot

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of parks here.

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And so really you're getting quite a deal here in this 500 area, 500,000.

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I think this represents a tremendous value for people looking right now.

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I think we're going to get some more development on the East Waterfront too.

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So that just is a cherry on top of that Sunday.

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But all around this neighborhood, this Cascade Park, if you can find something for, you know,

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the high fours, 470, that just represents tremendous value to me.

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And I would definitely be looking in this area for sure.

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So I'm going to zoom out here and we're going to take a look at the last neighborhood I

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had on my list as far as under the Radar Gems that you should have your eye on.

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And we're going to move a little bit east and a little bit north here.

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And I'm going to take you to this Milp Plain area here.

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So the median home price here is a little bit higher.

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It tends to be more in the five east.

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And I think a lot of that is because of this Lackamas Prairie neighborhood here, which

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has some more expensive developments, but I love this area from the zoom out.

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I love this border area here on East Vancouver, sort of between the Camus area and, you know,

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this area of Vancouver as you go west here.

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But I like this border area.

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There's things happening here.

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There's, you know, the Boulder Ridge development.

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You have Fisher's Landing, which is a little higher price point.

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But as you go up here, you can still get homes.

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And I'm talking about kind of this, um, pheasant run area here.

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And this area here, I sold the home to a client not too long ago.

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They love it.

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Their child goes to Pacific.

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No, it's Harmony.

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Sorry, Harmony here.

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You got schools located nearby.

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You have access to parks.

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You have access to green space.

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You have access to Camus.

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You're not too far from like Lackamas Lake and Round Lake.

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So that's good.

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And I find that this area represents a really great value in that even at 550, I feel with

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the development going on there, the rising tide lifts all boats.

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And in this pheasant run area, especially the west side here, where it's a little more

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affordable.

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You get a tremendous value.

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So those are five under the radar neighborhoods in Vancouver that I have my eye on.

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And I think you should have your eye on too, because like I said, safe, fairly walkable,

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access to transportation, a lot of amenities like parks, libraries, and right now can be

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had at about or even below the immediate home price of 500,000.

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So if you're interested in any of these homes or any others, please feel to reach out to

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me.

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I'd love to talk with you about how I can help serve you.

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And with that, I'm going to wish you a great weekend and take care, everybody.

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See you on the next episode.