The Seattle apartment vacancy rate is the highest it’s been in seven years, and a report says it’s only going to keep growing.
The market vacancy rate, reports the Puget Sound Business Journal, is 4 percent, up from 3.3 percent from the spring—not the biggest jump, but that number leaves out brand-new properties.
Include projects that are still gathering their first tenants and that number jumps to 6.8 percent, a much larger increase from 5.1 percent in the spring. That would imply that new projects coming online are greatly impacting the vacancy rate for the first time in a while.
The numbers come from a local apartment survey by local analysis firm Dupre and Scott. Their report says to expect Seattle’s rent increases to slow down as a result—with increased supply, landlords may be more desperate to fill units.
Apartment List recently pegged year-over-year rent increases in Seattle at 5.4 percent—and while it’s still a hike, it’s not the biggest hike we’ve seen. (Other reports, which don’t weigh their numbers in the same way as Apartment List, found a bigger jump.)
Still, rent continues to climb, and even if it’s climbing more slowly, it’s still too high for many in the city. A recent study found that more than half of Seattle filers made less than $50,000 last year—a salary that can barely afford the lowest estimates for typical Seattle rent.
Half of those filers, the study found, made less than $25,000.
Seattle rents have jumped 57 percent in the last six years, reports the Seattle Times.