Investing in Spokane Market?

[Jacob Wyatt]

Hi BP community! 

Recently, a curiosity for the Spokane Market has begun to intrigue me. Living in Seattle it is the closest large and affordable market to begin my investing career into. The city has a ton going for it and a good friend of mine whom grew up there has been an inspiration that the city is improving and would be a good investment.

I was curious as to what the BP community thought:

How is the Spokane Market? The properties seems to work well numbers wise in my calculations.

Is one type of market favorable to another (SFH vs duplex...etc)?

How are the quality of tenants in the area?

Would you recommend one part of Spokane over another to begin looking deeper into?

Any information is greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time!

[Tyler Morgan]

@Jacob Wyatt  

Spokane is a great place to invest right now if you can find the deals. Vacancies are at record lows and rents are keeping up with inflation+. 1700+ new units are permitted/planned to be constructed in 2017. These will all be class-A units that will have the highest rents. What we are expecting then is that class-B units will be very popular as there is little planned expansion in those working-class unit types. This means that owners of Spokane's mid-sized and small multifamily should see vacancy rates lower still and rents able to increase due to the high lessor's market. 

I hope that helps. Feel free to reach out if you have specific questions or need help finding properties.

Here is a link to NIA Black's 2016 Market Report for Spokane/Coeur d'Alene. The 2017 report hasn't yet been published online, but I have access to it if you are interested.