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Seattle’s construction boom has been dominated by one-bedroom apartments and studios—housing built for one or two, at least ideally—for quite some time. But these apartment sizes don’t meet the needs of every household.
Back in 2017, we reported on this very issue. Numbers from real estate data group Costar showed that more than 80 percent of units constructed in Seattle between 2012 and partway through 2017 were studios or one-bedrooms.
We checked back with Costar, and it looks like since then—January 2018 through February of this year—not a whole lot has changed. Around 80 percent of new, market units have one bedroom or fewer. While two-bedrooms jumped just a couple of points, three-bedrooms largely held steady.
In some neighborhoods, this is more pronounced than others. In Ballard, historically a settlement of Scandinavian families, studios make up more than 70 percent of all new construction. Even farther away from the city center—stretching up past the north end and south to Renton—larger apartments are less and less common.
“The city of Seattle definitely has a family-sized housing problem,” said Costar market analyst Jared Kadry. “Developers are targeting millennials and tech employees in the urban core, where large units are not necessarily a priority.”
Seattle new apartment construction by neighborhood
| Submarket | Studios | One-bedrooms | Two-bedrooms | Three-bedrooms | Four-bedrooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submarket | Studios | One-bedrooms | Two-bedrooms | Three-bedrooms | Four-bedrooms |
| Ballard | 72.10% | 26.10% | 1.70% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Central Seattle | 42.30% | 40.70% | 17.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Downtown Seattle | 8.50% | 61.10% | 27.90% | 2.50% | 0.00% |
| Lake Union | 20.90% | 60.90% | 17.50% | 0.70% | 0.00% |
| Northwest Seattle and northern suburbs | 35.90% | 42.00% | 21.30% | 0.80% | 0.00% |
| Northeast Seattle | 59.40% | 37.10% | 3.60% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Queen Anne | 24.60% | 59.20% | 15.40% | 0.80% | 0.00% |
| Renton and South King County | 36.90% | 45.30% | 16.80% | 1.10% | 0.00% |
| South Seattle | 14.30% | 66.70% | 19.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| West Seattle | 14.20% | 64.20% | 21.50% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
Where there are large units, they’re not always priced for families or, as the oft-repeated and seldom-useful advice goes, getting a roommate. Three-bedrooms are largely concentrated downtown and in South Lake Union, where they’re a staple on the top floors of luxury high-rise buildings. For example, West Edge at Second and Pike has eight such units, billed as penthouses. Four are available as of publication, with rent ranging from $11,500 to $16,600 per month. The McKenzie in South Lake Union is another example, with spacious three-bedroom apartments on its top four floors going for as much as $11,000 a month. Even in Tukwila’s Aramark—which accounts for all four of the three-bedroom apartments in its submarket—those units are going for more than $6,000 per month.
The lower floors of those buildings also complicate things somewhat. New construction often includes what is euphemistically called an “open one-bedroom”—or, even more euphemistically, an “urban one-bedroom”—which is, essentially, a studio with a carved-out sleeping nook. As we were discussing the numbers with Kadry, he confirmed that some of those units are being captured as one-bedrooms.
Seattle’s lack of family-sized housing is nothing new. A 2011 city report found that low- and middle-income families needing three or more bedrooms have the greatest difficulty finding housing, and a 2014 follow-up whitepaper from the Seattle Planning Commission urged city leaders to “foster a greater variety of housing.” But the better part of a decade after the 2011 report, 80 percent of new, market construction still caters to people with larger families, whether chosen or not.
Anecdotally, city and nonprofit housing providers do a little bit better in providing more options. Capitol Hill Housing is including two- and three-bedrooms in the transit-oriented development at the Capitol Hill light rail station, and has some existing two- and three-bedrooms available at its current properties. Seattle Housing Authority units typically include larger apartment sizes, but the estimated wait times on two- or three-bedroom units are at least two years across the board. While larger apartments aren’t unheard of in the city’s multifamily tax exemption (MFTE) program, which incentivizes private developers to build affordable housing, availability is still dominated by studios and one-bedrooms, with fewer than 10 participating units with three or more bedrooms.
Besides, there’s a lot of space in between qualifying for low-income housing, assuming it can fit you in, and being able to afford a penthouse. With barriers already high for families in the city—parents can expect to pay at least $1,000 a month in childcare alone—we could reach a day where new studios don’t cut it.