Dad Daze: Did I really ruin Spokane?

“You ruined Spokane, apparently.” That was the message I received along with the link to the recent New York Times feature about the dramatic rise in local home prices with the headline “The Next Affordable City Is Already Too Expensive.”

The note emanated from my longtime friend Dan DeLuca, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s music critic. The email wasn’t surprising since Dan often makes me feel like Larry David to his Richard Lewis.

But could he be correct? Did I ruin Spokane? Is the nation’s best-kept secret out courtesy of what I’ve written in Dad Daze over the past two years? Well, according to the Times and local Realtors, real estate has jumped 60% since I joined The Spokesman-Review staff exactly two years ago.

Could it be a coincidence? Could my raving about the city’s lovely parks, noting how my sons can’t get enough of Dick’s Hamburgers and the fish and chips at Zip’s and my surprise at how laid-back the residents of the Inland Northwest have caused a historic real estate spike?

Maybe I’m the problem and I didn’t notice. After penning a Dad Daze, “Seeing Spokane Through My Children’s Eyes,” in August 2020, I received a letter from a Los Angeles resident who expressed what I wrote about the Lilac City appealed to him. He said he was considering a trip to town for a potential move.

I received a similar letter from a Seattle resident after I wrote a column a few weeks later about how my kids embraced skateboarding at Riverfront Park. I didn’t think anything of it, but if I caused anyone to relocate courtesy of my column, I would suffer for it.

The competition I caused would be hard to take since I’ve been searching for some Spokane grass I can call my own since my arrival. Less than two weeks after my first day at the newspaper, we were in lockdown, which made it impossible to see the inside of a home. For some reason, I thought property values would sink or at least remain the same. Wishful thinking didn’t work.

When I was getting to know Spokane, it was wonderfully under the radar. It reminds me of when I moved to Jenkintown in 2001, which is a tiny borough just outside Philadelphia. When a good friend became mayor of Jenkintown, he jumped at every opportunity to shine a light on the relatively unknown suburb.

After a local event was covered by the local Fox affiliate, the town’s elder statesman made it known that my pal made a mistake. Another friend, who led the local Rotary Club, helped redirect the mayor. “It’s about being stealth here,” he said. “We don’t want everyone to know about our town.”

A good thing, however, can be under wraps for only so long. Shortly after that meeting, National Geographic focused on Jenkintown with a feature, which dubbed it “The Last Mayberry in America” The ABC hit “The Goldbergs” was inspired by creator Adam Goldberg’s childhood in Jenkintown, and that’s where the show is set.

Austin, Texas, was once a fairly sleepy town, and it has burgeoned like no other city. When I arrived in Spokane, it reminded me in some ways of how Austin was during the early 1990s, and I was thinking about how to compare the two cities, but the pandemic struck.

I just can’t believe it took so long for folks to realize that Spokane is such a special city. I’m reminded by entertainers I interview. While shooting “Boon” at this time last year in Spokane, actor-producer Neal McDonough raved about the city.

“We’ve fallen in love with Spokane,” McDonough said. “There are so many reasons to come back. Downtown Spokane can look like New York, Boston or Chicago. … The mountains are nearby. It’s just beautiful here.” McDonough left town hoping to return to build a film studio.

Comics I interview constantly rave about Spokane. Damon Wayans waxed about experiencing Spokane for the first time while working on the film “Roxanne” a generation ago. “What struck me about Spokane was how beautiful it is there,” Wayans said. “And then there is the air. It smells better in Spokane than it does in Los Angeles.”

It’s easy to take Spokane and its air quality, lack of humidity and four distinct seasons for granted. Combine that with an evolving city that is growing, and what is there to complain about?

Oh yeah, the jaw-dropping cost of real estate and how rent has risen. I can’t help but check out property history whenever I visit a place and wince when I glance at what a house sold for in 2016. Why couldn’t I have joined The Spokesman-Review then?

But I’ve never had luck with real estate. When I thought about buying into crime-ridden Asbury Park, New Jersey, 18 years ago, I was talked out of the move since my former editor at the Asbury Park Press convinced me that the historic town off the Atlantic Ocean was not a place to raise kids. She proceeded to note that Bruce Springsteen’s town was in a 35-year slump. Great argument. Properties have quadrupled since 2004.

My close friend Brenda, who owns a number of properties, tried to persuade me to buy into her idyllic Austin neighborhood of Barton Springs. Every year since 1999, Brenda would detail why Austin would be the perfect city for my children to come of age. Due to my math issues, I can’t even calculate how much properties have risen in America’s No. 1 boom city of the last decade.

I’ve been waiting two years for the housing frenzy to abate. Since then, it’s been about the pressure of competition from those from Seattle, Portland, California and Texas hoping to find affordable housing.

It took two years, maybe that’s my magic number, to find the house I purchased in Jenkintown, which was a fluke, a for-sale-by-owner that no one knew about since the prior owner decided not to advertise the property. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time with interest rates rising and maybe the competition falling off that the market will shift.

If anyone knows of a reasonably priced house before it hits the market, I’m all ears. If such a reasonable deal can be cut, I promise not to write about all of what makes Spokane great so potential homeowners can purchase a home with relative ease. I can only imagine what that experience is like.