Pandemic brings great rent deals for some Seattle-area apartments, but not all
A rift is emerging in the Seattle-area apartment market, the result of the very different pandemic realities for the city’s wealthy and less-wealthy residents.
Plummeting demand for luxury, city-center living has led high-end apartments to slash rents and offer gangbuster deals to lure new tenants. Meanwhile, rents in less-expensive markets have stayed flat or even ticked up since March as remote workers seek more space — and many laid off due to the pandemic migrate out of the city to cut costs.
Rents in Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond, the area’s most expensive markets, where two-bedroom apartments typically lease for between $1,850 and $2,130, have fallen by as much at 14% since the start of the pandemic, according to data from ApartmentList. This month Seattle rents dropped 4.2% from September, marking the seventh straight month the city has seen rent decreases.
The actual price drops, though, are likely even steeper. The ApartmentList data doesn’t factor in lease concessions like months of free rent, parking fee waivers or cashback deals — incentives that are now common among the Seattle area’s glassy, top-tier apartment complexes wooing new tenants.
More than 70% of large Seattle-area apartments built after 2017 — which tend to be concentrated in urban cores and packed with amenities like dog salons, gyms and rooftop terraces — are offering lease deals equivalent to more than one month of free rent, on average, according to CoStar.
The Kiara in South Lake Union, for instance, is offering three months of free rent for some units, as well as what amounts to a 30-day “try before you buy” guarantee: Renters who break their lease or change units within the first 30 days in the building won’t be penalized.
Down the street, the McKenzie building — billed as “5-star hotel style comfort and convenience nearly unheard of in the area” — is also offering three months free for new tenants who sign 18-month leases. AMLI South Lake Union is offering two months of free rent; The Perry on First Hill is offering one month of free rent and has slashed prices 20% on some units; REO Flats on Capitol Hill boasts 10 weeks of free rent, no security deposit and a $500 move-in credit.
“It’s been kind of a roller coaster,” said RJ Valera, a leasing manager at AMLI South Lake Union. “A lot of people have either moved back home, or bought houses … because people working for tech firms around here don’t need to go into the office.”
The last time area landlords dangled so many freebies in front of renters was in 2018, when a burst of new construction led to an apartment glut, causing vacancy rates to top 14% in South Lake Union.
Among buildings with 50 or more units, South Lake Union now has the highest vacancy rate, 9.5%, of any submarket in the Seattle area, followed by downtown Seattle at 8.5% and First Hill at 8.1%, according to RealPage. Across King and Snohomish counties, 5.9% of such units are vacant on average.
Source: settletimes.com
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