Seattle Times recently told its readers that if they’re hoping Seattle-area rents will get cheap, they better not hold their breath. While the rental market has cooled in recent months, as vacancies and new projects have brought landlords to offer big incentives for tenants, “that doesn’t mean Seattle is suddenly a utopia for apartment hunters. In fact, it is among the priciest cities in the U.S. for renters—having grown 155 percent in twenty years—and steadying prices have come “only after seven straight years of large rent hikes that have made Seattle unaffordable to anyone not making decent money.”
Read MoreAfter a few years of staggering rent increases, single-family home rental prices in Seattle are leveling off, which Seattle Times predicts could bring more and more landlords to decide to list their homes for sale and benefit potential homebuyers (and renters). As the article outlines, approximately 1 in 6 single-family homes in the greater Seattle region is currently rented, and the last couple of years have seen dramatic decreases in what was once a burgeoning market for landlords. While “rents in local single-family homes rose a paltry 0.4 percent in February from a year ago,” landlords saw 4% increases last year, and “just two years ago, rents were soaring as much as 9 percent annually.”
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