SEATTLE — Seattle is building more apartments than just about anywhere, and now 1 in 10 units across the city are sitting empty. Landlords have responded by lowering rents slightly and offering more perks to get tenants in the door.
The housing market is almost always at its slowest this time of year, but the changes this winter have been especially stark, according to new figures from Apartment Insights/RealData, which surveys landlords here quarterly.
Across King and Snohomish counties, apartment rents dropped 1.1 percent from the third to fourth quarter, the second-biggest quarterly drop this decade, behind only the 2.9 percent drop seen at this time last year. When factoring in concessions landlords are offering to lure tenants, like a free month’s rent, the actual amount renters paid dropped 1.4 percent in the past quarter, or $24 a month.
Those incentives are now commonplace at new buildings and becoming more prominent in older complexes that are also struggling to fill up their units. Some property managers are even offering mystery gifts to those who agree to just show up for a tour.
Some rental ads spotted:
• “2bed home with 2.5k Amazon Gift Card and More!” at a new build in First Hill
• “2 Months Free plus $1000 gift card if move in with(in) 1 Week!” in Kirkland
• “NEWLY REDUCED PRICES — 1 Mo FREE + 2 Mo FREE Parking!” in Sammamish
The market is cooling the most in the priciest parts of the region. On the Eastside, rents dipped 2.5 percent, or nearly $50, in the last quarter, while rents remained virtually unchanged in South King County and Snohomish County.
Rents dropped at least 3 percent in the past quarter in Belltown, South Lake Union, Fremont/Wallingford, Kirkland, Redmond, Sammamish/Issaquah and Edmonds.
Seattle rents are dropping at the fourth-fastest rate in the country, behind Cleveland, Oakland and Spokane, according to apartmentlist.com. A year and a half ago it was common to find Seattle on the list of fastest-rising rents in the nation.
Year-over-year, rents were still up about 3 percent in Seattle and the Eastside after adjusting for landlord concessions, just a bit more than inflation.
“I’ve been renting in Seattle since 2014, and this is the first time where I felt like I have negotiating power,” said Kjerstin Wood, who went apartment hunting with her partner last weekend and got bombarded with offers like free parking that she plans to use to play landlords off one another. “For the most part, everyone we’ve met with has been very eager to get us to apply right then and there.”
The trend is likely to continue: The apartment-construction surge that began earlier this decade is continuing at the same brisk pace, outpacing demand for rentals even as the city’s population booms.
