Seattle rents have declined 0.7% over the past month, and have decreased moderately by 1.3% in comparison to the same time last year, according to the November report from ApartmentList.com.
Currently, median rents in Seattle stand at $1,340 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,660 for a two-bedroom. Seattle’s year-over-year rent growth lags the state average of 1.2%, as well as the national average of 1.1%.
Rents rising across the Seattle Metro
While rent prices have decreased in Seattle over the past year, the rest of the metro is seeing the opposite trend. Rents have risen in 9 of the largest 10 cities in the Seattle metro for which we have data. Here’s a look at how rents compare across some of the largest cities in the metro.
- Lakewood has the least expensive rents in the Seattle metro, with a two-bedroom median of $1,440; additionally, the city has seen the fastest rent growth in the metro over the past month (0.9%).
- Over the past year, Seattle proper is the only city in the metro that has seen rents fall, with a decline of 1.3%. Median two-bedrooms there cost $1,660, while one-bedrooms go for $1,340.
- Bellevue has the most expensive rents of the largest cities in the Seattle metro, with a two-bedroom median of $2,350; rents went down 0.7% over the past month but rose 2.7% over the past year.
Rents Up In Spokane And Vancouver
As rents have fallen moderately in Seattle, many similar cities nationwide have seen prices increase, in some cases substantially. Compared to most other large cities across the country, Seattle is less affordable for renters.
- Other cities across the state have seen rents slightly increase, with Washington as a whole logging rent growth of 1.2% over the past year. For example, rents have grown by 1.4% in Spokane and 1.4% in Vancouver.
- Seattle’s median two-bedroom rent of $1,660 is above the national average of $1,180. Nationwide, rents have grown by 1.1% over the past year compared to the 1.3% decline in Seattle.
- While rents in Seattle fell moderately over the past year, many cities nationwide saw increases, including Phoenix (+3.0%), Austin (+2.3%), and New York (+1.5%).
- Renters will generally find more expensive prices in Seattle than most similar cities. For example, Spokane has a median 2BR rent of $890, where Seattle is more than one-and-a-half times that price.
Methodology:
Apartment List is committed to making our rent estimates the best and most accurate available. To do this, we start with reliable median rent statistics from the Census Bureau, then extrapolate them forward to the current month using a growth rate calculated from our listing data. In doing so, we use a same-unit analysis similar to Case-Shiller’s approach, comparing only units that are available across both time periods to provide an accurate picture of rent growth in cities across the country. Our approach corrects for the sample bias inherent in other private sources, producing results that are much closer to statistics published by the Census Bureau and HUD. Our methodology also allows us to construct a picture of rent growth over an extended period of time, with estimates that are updated each month.
