Growing Up Yakima

David McKinney
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Besides its amazing people—Yakima, Washington has so much to offer. Growing up here just a big wheel ride from where I live now brings a flood of memories of the people, places and events that makes Yakima special. Catch us Monday mornings on Good Morning Yakima on 1280 NewsTalk KIT.

  1. Aug 31

    050 - Why Local Trust Beats a Big City Portfolio

    This episode of Growing Up Yakima got a little meta — we talked about the whole premise of the segment itself, and how funny it is that Owen actually lives in the house I grew up in. That sparked some memories of the home improvements we did back then, like repainting the whole exterior one summer (learning to run an airless sprayer and not overspray in the process), and a bigger project helping my uncle build a 24,000-square-foot warehouse, complete with pouring foundations and rigging up a mobile scaffold out of an old Ford dump truck. Growing up on a farm meant we learned to be self-sufficient early, which got me thinking about how hard it can be for kids to find work these days — I actually just helped my 13-year-old son come up with his own little "concierge garbage service" for the neighbors so he could pick up some pocket money before school starts back up. That thread of hard work and resourcefulness ties directly into why those shared Yakima values matter in business. I talked about how having a client base rooted in the same community gives Wilkinson a real advantage — someone in Yakima can literally sit down face-to-face with me, whether things are going great or something needs to be worked through, which isn't something every investment firm can offer. I also touched on the bigger picture of what that track record looks like: 35 years in the business, nearly 20 of those with me personally, $3.5 billion in real estate transacted, and an average of 25% annualized returns for our investors, even though we typically target more conservative mid-to-high teens. If you're interested in exploring real estate investing without the hands-on landlord work, give me a call or text anytime, or check us out at wearewilkinson.com.

  2. Aug 31

    049 - Bark Parks, Pet Perks, and Passive Income

    This episode of Growing Up Yakima went to the dogs — literally. I walked through my childhood pet history, starting with Mona Me, a German shepherd we had out in West Valley who loved chasing the neighbor's horses (and got kicked in the head more than once for it, as the story goes — she also apparently chased off a feral cat that snuck into my crib when I was a baby, so she gets some credit there). From there it was a parade of family pets: a miniature schnauzer named Sally, a litter of black labs, and my own 4-H project, a Norwegian elkhound named Thor who had a mind of his own. That love of pets led naturally into how Wilkinson designs its apartment communities with pet owners in mind. When we acquire a property, we look at adding a "bark park" — an off-leash enclosed area for dogs — along with pet-washing stations for bigger dogs that can't fit in a shower. On ground-floor units, we'll sometimes install fencing right off the back door so residents can let their dogs roam freely; those units often rent for $75–$100 more a month because of it. It's a great example of how small, thoughtful improvements can make a community more desirable while also growing net operating income. I also touched on the bigger investment picture: with the stock market near an all-time high, more people are looking at real estate as a way to diversify and protect their gains. Multifamily properties are essentially "on sale" right now, four years past the market's peak, which makes this a great time to get in — whether that's joining our current fund or participating when we sell properties we acquired a couple of years ago. If that sounds interesting, give me a call on my cell or find us at wearewilkinson.com.

  3. Aug 31

    048 - Golf, Cherries, and 20 Years of Trust

    This episode of Growing Up Yakima kicked off with a shoutout to the Baxter First Response Invitational, a golf tournament I played in this past Friday benefiting the Canine Foundation — the folks who outfit K9s with body armor. It netted around $46,000 this year, and I got to run the Wilkinson booth right alongside my wife Amanda at her own booth. It reminded me of tagging along with my dad to insurance brokers' golf tournaments growing up, where instead of playing in a regular foursome, he'd drive the beverage cart around so he could talk to everybody on the course — a habit I've carried into how I sponsor holes and set up booths today. That same idea of building relationships through small, memorable gestures led us into our cherry tradition. Every year right before the Fourth of July, we hand-deliver boxes of fresh Yakima Valley cherries to clients — a tradition inspired by my dad delivering Almond Roca to his insurance contacts at Christmas. This year we added a new touch: a QR code on the card linking to a short video of Riley Wilkinson walking through the orchard just before harvest. It's a small thing, but it's led to some great referrals and helped people feel more connected to us. Those same shared values — hard work, entrepreneurialism, and a "figure it out" farm-kid mentality — are what brought me together with the Wilkinson family in the first place, and it's why so many of us on the team have stuck together for 20-plus years through multiple market cycles. That trust is really the foundation of what we do at Wilkinson, since we invest right alongside the people who trust us with their money. If you'd like to talk through passive real estate investing options, give me a call on my cell anytime.

  4. Aug 31

    047 - Walkmans, Worldcom, and What I Learned About Diversifying

    This episode of Growing Up Yakima got personal, with a look back at some early money lessons. I shared the story of saving up as a kid to buy an $80 Walkman at the old Safeway electronics department on 56th — big money for a nine-year-old back in 1980 — and later regretting that I didn't hold onto that cash a little longer. My dad was a great saver and set up IRAs for us early on, though I confessed to tapping mine in college to fix my car's alternator and paying the penalty for it. I also relived a rougher lesson: a $10,000 bonus I invested across tech stocks like Microsoft, WorldCom, and Nokia back in January 2000, which had shrunk to about $2,500 by that April. Turns out spreading money across a handful of tech names isn't the same as real diversification. Those experiences shaped how I think about investing today — disciplined contributions to retirement accounts and diversified mutual funds for one part of the portfolio, but real estate has always been the constant. I talked about building a 24,000-square-foot warehouse with my brothers and uncle back in the early '90s that our family still owns and cash flows on to this day, and how that same mindset — finding a property with untapped potential and making it better — is exactly what we do at Wilkinson when we acquire an apartment community. I got into some of the specifics of how we drive that value: updating interiors as tenants naturally turn over (they move every 24 months on average), improving exteriors, adding better amenities, and fixing overlooked issues like an underground water leak in an Atlanta portfolio that ended up saving us $641,000 once repaired. On average, we've improved property values by over 70% using this approach over 35 years. If that sounds like something you'd want to be part of, give me a call on my cell or just Google Wilkinson Multifamily Investing here in Yakima.

  5. Aug 31

    046 - Crab Boils, Runaway Boats, and 25% Returns

    This episode of Growing Up Yakima kicked off with a mouthwatering topic — Dungeness crab season opening up in the Puget Sound. My wife Amanda put together a crab boil to celebrate her dad's birthday, and it brought back a flood of memories from our family's annual summer pilgrimage to a friend's cabin on Bainbridge Island. We're talking ferry docks, Ivar's clam strips, digging clams on the beach all day, and one unforgettable story about my dad losing our little runabout boat overnight because he'd anchored it with an old radiator instead of a real anchor (the tide came in and floated it right off the bottom). Add in a story about my little brother water-skiing at age six and accidentally getting chased off by Navy gunboats near a submarine base, and you've got a pretty solid snapshot of what Northwest summers were like growing up here. Those shared Yakima Valley experiences are exactly what led me to Wilkinson in the first place. I talked about starting my very first job at age 10 on my grandfather's hop ranch, and how the Wilkinson family had a strikingly similar upbringing on a cherry orchard on the north slope of the Tan Ridge. That shared foundation of hard work and small-town values is part of why I've stuck with this team for 20 years now — some of the people I work with have become my closest friends. On the investment side, I talked about how we work with accredited investors who are ready to step back from being hands-on landlords themselves, partnering with us and other institutional firms instead. Over 35 years, we've delivered an average of 25% annualized returns to the people who invest with us. If that's something you'd like to explore, give me a call on my cell or just Google Wilkinson here in Yakima.

  6. Aug 31

    045 - Summer Fun Buckets and 35 Years of Real Estate

    This episode of Growing Up Yakima was all about the end of the school year. With my son Duke wrapping up his last Monday of the school year, we got talking about our family tradition of the "summer fun bucket" — a giant galvanized pail filled with water guns, new shoes, and other summer essentials, handed over on the last day like a mini Christmas morning. That led me down memory lane to my own end-of-school memories: barbecues at Eshbaugh Park, the chaos of cleaning out desks, and the summer camps that followed, including a CYO camp up in Leavenworth where I once won both the golden bullet and golden arrow for shooting events in the same year. From there, I shared the story of how I actually ended up at Wilkinson almost 20 years ago. I'd moved back to Yakima after a family tragedy and reconnected with an old college friend, Craig Cup, whose family had worked with the Wilkinsons for years. Sitting down with them, I realized how much we had in common — I grew up working on my grandpa's hop farm in Moxee, and the Wilkinson family grew up on a 40-acre cherry ranch nearby, so we shared the same small-town work ethic and values that ended up shaping how we approach real estate today. I talked about how that shared background led to a business built around passive real estate investing — where instead of being the one handling the mortgage, insurance, and tenant headaches yourself, you invest alongside us in an LLC and we take care of the details while passing through the benefits. If that sounds interesting, reach out to me directly on my cell, or check us out at wearewilkinson.com.

  7. Aug 31

    043 - May the Fourth Be With You (And Your Real Estate Portfolio)

    This Growing Up Yakima landed on May the Fourth, so naturally we had to celebrate — "May the Fourth be with you." I got to reminisce about growing up a huge Star Wars fan, from building elaborate Tatooine-style dioramas out of river rocks in our backyard garden to knowing my wife Amanda was "the one" the first time I saw she owned the entire Star Wars collection on both VHS and DVD. We even named a whole litter of barn cats after Star Wars characters (a funny mix-up when the "male" barn cats we got to handle a ground squirrel problem turned out not to be male at all). With the franchise's 50th anniversary coming up next year, I'm already looking forward to the Yakima Symphony's tribute performance of John Williams' score. From there we talked about how those shared experiences — growing up here, going through the same crazes, building families and lives in this community — are exactly what connects me with the people I get to work with now on the real estate side. I walked through how investing with Wilkinson compares to buying a single-family rental or duplex yourself: instead of being tied to one property and one or two tenants, you can invest in our current offering, Fund 17, which spans more than 650 apartment units across markets like Dallas, Atlanta, Savannah, and Indianapolis. I also broke down the return options we offer — a recurring monthly income play targeting a 10% preferred return with an 8% regular distribution, or a longer-term growth-oriented option targeting 13.5–16.5% annualized returns. We're currently at three properties in this fund with a fourth potentially coming before we close it to new investors in a few months. If you want to explore it, give me a call, shoot me a text, or just look up Wilkinson here in Yakima.

  8. Aug 31

    042 - Skip the Spring Cleaning: How Passive Real Estate Works

    This episode of Growing Up Yakima leaned into a springtime theme — spring cleaning. I took a trip back to my childhood, where growing up on a farm meant learning to do a little bit of everything: weeding gardens, mowing lawns, laundry, even sewing. Chores were just part of the daily routine before school even started. I also remembered helping my dad take care of a couple of rental properties he owned, which got us talking about the different arrangements landlords make with tenants — some folks work out deals where tenants handle upkeep themselves in exchange for a break on rent, though those situations are honestly pretty rare. That memory turned into a bigger conversation about why spring is exactly the time property owners start thinking about their rentals, and why Washington state can be such a tough place to be a landlord. I talked about a trend I'm seeing right now: people selling off their single-family rental homes and reinvesting that money with us in a more diversified portfolio of multifamily apartment communities instead. I used the example of a 240-unit property we just financed in Indianapolis, where we locked in a rate a full percentage point better than what's typical on a 30-year loan here at home. One of the big advantages of investing with us is that you're never the one doing the "spring cleaning" — we've got on-site community managers, leasing agents, and roughly one maintenance staffer per 100 units keeping things running. I also shared a great example of our team's track record: on a property we recently sold, we grew the net operating income by 85% over five years, which led to a $15 million distribution to investors in that fund. If any of this sounds interesting, give me a call, send a text, or find us at wearewilkinson.com.

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About

Besides its amazing people—Yakima, Washington has so much to offer. Growing up here just a big wheel ride from where I live now brings a flood of memories of the people, places and events that makes Yakima special. Catch us Monday mornings on Good Morning Yakima on 1280 NewsTalk KIT.

Information

  • Creator
    David McKinney
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    49
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025
  • Show Website
    Growing Up Yakima