The Pros and Cons of Living in Snohomish Washington

What are the pros and cons of living in Snohomish, Washington?

The city of Snohomish is one of the best places to live in Snohomish County. In the recent years, it has been growing due to people migrating from the east side from Monroe and up to the city. Along with its location and the migration comes some of the pros as well as some of its cons.

As a local, I'm gonna break down some of these pros as well as the cons should you ever consider living in the city of Snohomish, Washington.

Pros of Living in Snohomish

Location - Snohomish City is located about 9 miles east of Everett and 25 miles north of Bellevue as well as Seattle. Its desirable location also paves a way to Stevens Pass via Highway 2 if you want to enjoy skiing and going to the east side. The major highway passes through Snohomish and it connects a lot of places together including Monroe. Overall, the location of the city and its proximity to other cities via major highways is a good reason why people flocked and considered living there.

Downtown Area - The downtown area has its old-school downtown vibes where the streets are filled with tons of shopping, restaurants, and all other places to buy food and dine in. It can be tricky to park in the downtown area during weekends due to people going out to dine and shop in these areas, but you can easily park elsewhere and walk to these frequently visited places via the sidestreets. 

One of the highly recommended restaurants that we love to dine in is The Repp where it is a great place for date nights. There are also multiple wine tasting rooms and distilleries as well as Mexican restaurants that can be found on the main street. The location of these restaurants are close to each other that you can easily hop from one place to another and enjoy a variety of food and drinks served

Acreage Opportunities - In Snohomish, you can still buy acreage properties. Not just small-sized ones, but a huge acreage. If you’ve been looking for an acreage that is also near to a city, then living in Snohomish is definitely worth the choice.

Fun Activities - If you have a family and are planning to move to the city, there’s lots of fun activities that are good for you and your kids. Among the fun activities to try is the Snohomish Aquatic Center. The 52,000 square feet recreational pool features a kiddie pool, lazy river, flow rider, hot tub, and a separate pool for laps that is great for kids and teenagers of all ages to enjoy. Apart from the aquatic center, your kids will also enjoy events in farm areas such as the corn maze and the pumpkin patches as well as movie nights. These areas capitalize the opportunity to organize and make their place a spot for entertainment and leisure.

Golfing in Snohomish Valley Golf Center is also one of the fun things to do in Snohomish. There is a driving range, a mini golf course, and they also have restaurants and bars. Our real estate team goes there sometimes for Team Happy Hour events where we dine, play golf and hang out.

Cons of Living in Snohomish

Traffic - Obviously, traffic is the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to the cons of living in the city as Highway 9 backs up really bad. Considering the highway cuts through Snohomish, it can get traffic all over the place which can get pretty frustrating. The roads in the Marsh Road and the roads toward the airport gets back up as well, so plan accordingly especially if you’re passing through these roads around 4-6pm as these areas have heavy traffic.

Airport - This can also be both under pros and cons, but if you don’t like the noise of the airplane taking off and landing, then Snohomish is not for you. Aside from the airplanes, you’ll also see planes taking off for skydiving and parachuting which is a very interesting activity for people who love these kinds of activities. But again, if the noise coming from the planes annoys, then you might want to reconsider moving somewhere else away from the downtown area or away from airport areas.

Distance to Services - Some areas in Snohomish get pretty deep such as Three Lakes, Lake Roesiger and Flowing Lake. We all want to live in places where we love solitude and away from the noisy neighbors and other distractions for privacy reasons. Snohomish offers these locations where we can benefit from, but take into consideration that these places can get pretty difficult when it comes to cell phone service as well as it is distant from quick access such as shopping as you have to travel at around 20 minutes just to get to downtown Snohomish. 

Home Prices - Homes in Snohomish are expensive. It’s much cheaper to live in Bellevue in comparison to this city. As of June 2023, the average price of the homes rose up to $983,000. The prices are higher and it’s not for everyone and it is quite a bit higher when compared to Arlington. Acreage properties also drive the property prices up, and finding acreage properties under a million dollars is a challenging thing to find. This is one of the things that you should consider before living in Snohomish as the home prices are higher compared to other cities. 

These are some of the pros and cons that you might want to consider before moving to Snohomish. Let us know what are the other pros and cons that you found and share it with us!

Video Transcription

What are the pros and cons of living in Snohomish?

And when I say Snohomish, I mean the city.

I'm going to break down for you as a local exactly what makes Snohomish awesome and I'm also going to share with you very openly what makes it not so awesome in some ways.

Overall, I think Snohomish is one of the best places to live in almost Snohomish County.

It's super desirable for some of the reason I'm going to share with you today and it's a very, very cool area that's got massive growth over the last five to seven years in particular.

Before we jump into that though, let's talk about the location of Snohomish.

Snohomish is about nine miles away from Everett. So, Everett is to the west of Snohomish.

It's not a bad commute if you're going to work at Boeing or other big employers in Everett, not a bad place to live.

It's about 25 miles north of Bellevue.

You've seen a lot of growth in Snohomish over the last five to seven years ago. A lot of that growth has come from people migrating from the East side up into Monroe and into Snohomish.

And so that's got some pluses to it and it's got some minuses as well as far as how it's impacted the city of Snohomish itself.

I just want to frame the location for you because that really explains why this growth has happened at such a dynamic rate in Snohomish over the last couple of years in particular.

It's a very desirable location with that proximity to Everett and also over to the east side.

Before we jump into the pros and cons though, hit the like button, hit the Subscribe button and get alerted as we put up new videos.

We try to do a new video each week breaking down a few different parts of Snohomish County .

Awesome places to live, awesome neighborhoods and things that you want to know about if you're a buyer.

My name is Mike Novak I'm the team leader for the Novak Real Estate Team part of Real brokerage but today I'm not your realistic agent I am your city guide let's break it down.

Starting with the pros let's start with the positive side of things

Obviously, the location is a huge win when it comes to Snohomish.

I kind of framed earlier in this video the distance to get to Everett, the distance to Bellevue.

Seattle's not that far either.

It's a super desirable location. You can also pop up over Highway 2. Very, very quick access to Highway 2 from Snohomish and you can get over to Stevens Pass to go skiing.

You can go over the mountains to the east side very quickly. Leavenworth is about a two-hour drive from Snohomish.

Highway 2 literally touches and goes right through the middle of Snohomish and that's obviously a major highway that connects a lot of things together.

522 also connects Monroe and Monroe in Snohomish are obviously very close together and that takes you kind of down towards these sides you have multiple options on how to get to this side.

One of the big pros is absolutely without question the location of Snohomish.

It's super central but it's also kind of a little bit out there and a little bit rural.

It's a hard combination to find, that's one of the reasons people really love it.

I see a lot of comparisons and hear comparisons from people between North Bend, Arlington, and Snohomish.

They all kind of have similar downtown vibes. They're all rural but kind of up-and-coming towns.

Snohomish has definitely been discovered so is Northbound I feel like Arlington's kind of still maybe a little bit undiscovered compared to those other two, but Snohomish is definitely caught on over the last five years and for good reason I mean the location is absolutely.

The second big pro obviously it's the downtown area. It's got an old-school legit Main Street in downtown Snohomish.

Full of shopping, full of restaurants. It’s just a very fun place to go and hang out and it's right off the river too. It can be tough to find parking down there on weekends or in the evenings, but just park ways away and walk in there from one of the side streets shouldn't be a problem at all.

There's lots of great restaurants. Some of our favorite restaurants in Snohomish is The Repp. It’s in downtown Snohomish and make sure you make a reservation because it gets super busy there but it's a great date night location and it's right off the main street area there.

There's also multiple wine tasting rooms and the distillery right in downtown Snohomish as well and there's a great Mexican restaurants right off the main street.

There's lots of places to kind of bounce around to using my wife I go out for date nights and how much we all just go to one place and go to like three or four of them and just have a little snack and a glass of wine or a cocktail at each of them and just kind of experience all these different fun places.

Also, I want to give a shout out to Trails End Taphouse and Restaurant, it's off the Centennial Trail it's not in downtown, it’s down by the Aquatic Center. In my opinion, it’s definitely one of the best restaurants in Snohomish. Really good scratch made food. Their Pizza is fantastic they've got like 50 tap beers there. They've got some great steaks, killer mac and cheese.

Just really high quality food. If you like good sandwiches they're great for that too.

Check out Trails End. Again it can get super busy. I don't think they take reservations but you can join their wait list online which is really helpful just because it gets super busy there.

Go early if you can just because it's not a huge place, but check out Trails End if you're looking for an awesome place to go out to eat in Snohomish

The downtown area is, without question, one of the biggest things that people actually love about them.

The third big thing that people love about Snohomish is the acreage opportunities.

You can still buy acreage and Snohomish. Not just postage stamp size properties, but like legit like horse properties, lots of acreage.

One acre, five acres 20 acres you can find that all in Snohomish. You're going to pay for it of course.

I'll talk about home prices a little bit later on the video on the con side of things. But if you want acreage and you want to be close to the city, it is totally possible with Snohomish.

That's definitely a big reason people move out there. They want to have a property on a couple of Acres or just one acre. They don't want to be right up next to their neighbors in the subdivision but they also kind of want to be closer to the city. Snohomish is definitely worth checking out.

The fourth big thing that people love about Snohomish and definitely on the pros side of things there's a lot to do with kids.

If you've got a family Snohomish is a lot of fun. There’s some of our family's favorite things to do in Snohomish and I wanted to share with you because I think they're going to resonate as well.

Obviously, the Aquatic Center. The Aquatic Center is lights out fun. It’s just really cool.

It's fun to go to on the weekend. They have a cool like busy lazy river going on, they've got places for little kids, places for bigger kids, and there's just a lot to do there and my kids absolutely love it. If we want to take them on a really fun Saturday excursion we'll take them out to the Aquatic Center and then after they get all their energy ran off and they're starving, take them right across the street Trails End Tap House and fuel back up with some delicious food. So the Aquatic Center is definitely one of the things that people love.

There's also a lot of farms. And when I say farms, there's things happening at these farms. There's always something happening whether it's like a pumpkin patch, corn mazes, or whatever. They are down Marsh Road and Highway nine. That's where most of them are at. There’s movies that go on there at nights and stuff. There's still a lot to do in the farm areas of Snohomish and some of those farms have really capitalized the opportunity to take these amazing properties they have and make them entertaining in lots of different ways. So, a lot of them have different things going on every month and it's a lot of fun for the kids.

We also have Centennial Trail. It cuts right through Snohomish.  It takes you right on the Trails End Tap House. It’s a super cool trail to hop on a bike with the kids and bike around. Lots of really cool things to see off the Centennial Trail in Snohomish and definitely something the family is going to love doing. It's busy on the weekends of course or on a nice sunny day, but it's busy for a very good reason.

You also have Snohomish Golf Center which is really cool. It's off the Marsh Road area and it's got a driving range, a miniature Putt-Putt course and they've got a restaurant, and bar. It’s really a fun place to go hang out, like our real estate team will go over there for Happy Hour every couple of months or so and just go hang out hit some balls and drink some beers together. It’s really a fun place to hang out, very family friendly. Bring the kids and kids love miniature golf there again it gets really busy sometimes but it can be a really fun place to hang out in Snohomish. It’s definitely worth checking also.

Okay let's talk about some of the negatives, the cons to live in Snohomish.

Without question, traffic can be one of them. Highway 9 and the arterials off of Highway 9 can back up really bad all over Snohomish. Highway 9 Cuts right through Snohomish and it can back up on Marsh Road, it can back up on the Larimer Road, and it can back up all over the place. So, just be aware of that like those kind of Acreage Farm areas down by Marsh Road get super busy. The road to the airport get backed up, so just plan if you're going through there between like four and six pm there's going to be some pretty heavy traffic because a lot of people are using that to get back home, maybe they're coming from Everett or from down south and they're using Highway nine or those arterials like Marsh or Lower Larimer to get back to where they're trying to go it can be frustrating just because you're sitting at the stoplight there for what seems like forever and there's definitely just something you want to be aware of. It's not as bad when you're not off at Highway Nine, like if you're out in Snohomish, like deeper Snohomish, you’re not going to see much traffic but Highway 9 definitely backs up in lots of different areas during that rush hour when everyone's trying to get back home but also sometimes in the morning people are trying to get out to work

So be aware of the traffic if you're thinking about making a move to Snohomish

Another negative which can also kind of be a positive is there's an airport in Snohomish. If you don't love the sound of planes coming and going, you're not going to like this.

There's little Cessnas taken off from there all the time. There's actually parachuting school out of Snohomish airport, so there's people going out there jumping out all the time. It's kind of fun to watch. I think it's entertaining you go down to the airport and go sit out on the back out there and watch people parachuting in. But if you don't love the sound of planes you're not going to love this. You don't have to deal with it if you go to like North Snohomish out by like the Three Lakes area, but just be aware like down by Highway nine and kind of the down 10 or you're going to continually hear the buzz of the plane.

So if that annoys you and you don't want to be around that definitely don't buy a property that's anywhere close to the downtown area or anywhere close to the airport.

That brings me to another possible negative. And like every negative there's some positive of angles to it as well. Snohomish goes deep. So when you got to like the Three Lakes there, Lake Roesiger, Flowing Lake, all those areas you're really deep in Snohomish, sometimes you don't have great cell phone service and you're a long ways from services. People love that for the solitude and the privacy but it's just something you want to be aware of if you want to have like quick access to shopping. You won’t have great cell phone service you're not going to find that in some of those areas.You're going to be 20 minutes out of downtown because Snohomish is such a big area. It touches up to Granite Falls and it goes out to Monroe. It goes super deep, so just be aware of that.

Again this can be a positive for some people but it's also a negative, just depending on if your expectations of have services closer to you, have great cell phone service things like that. So, just be aware of how deep Snohomish goes in particular in the Flowing Lake, Lake Roesiger and Three Lakes area.

All right, the last negative and I don't think there's anything positive about this one: it's home prices.

Snohomish home prices are expensive. It's still much cheaper than living in Bellevue that the average home price as of the shooting of this video which is June 2023: 983 thousand dollars. It's expensive, it's not for everybody and it's quite a bit higher than Arlington, like a couple hundred grand higher. So, just be aware of that. If you can afford it, not a big deal. It’s more expensive too because there's a lot more acreage property so it drives the average price up for sure. But you just need to be aware that home prices are not cheap.

Finding something that's really great on the acreage under a million dollars can be very challenging to do in Snohomish. Some of the homes go over three million dollars. You know if they're on big acreage properties, and lots of square footage, nicely built homes. Shops obviously drive up prices well, there's lots of shops in Snohomish, and there’s lots of riding arenas, barns, and all these outbuildings. All those things just drive that average price up so $983,000 which is a pretty stiff payment if you're not putting a lot of money down. So, just be aware if value is important to you, Snohomish might not be the place for you. If you're willing to pay for it to have that amazing location and all those amenities I talked about earlier, then it could be worth it. It's just something you have to be aware.

So those are the pros and cons of living in Snohomish. I'd love to hear from you on what you think the benefits and also maybe some of the disadvantages of living out in Snohomish. Definitely throw those in the comments below. Everyone's got their own opinion I want to hear what yours is when you think about buying or selling real estate reach out to me direct. My contact information is down below.