Housing Market Trends | Is Seattle Condo Market Strongly Recovering? Rents were increased by 9.6%!

As we continue moving forward into post-pandemic life in June 2021, both the Seattle home buying and selling market and the rental market are still very competitive.

Median apartment rents in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA increased 9.6% year-over-year in May, which was ahead of most metro areas in the country, including New York, San Francisco, Boston, Austin, and the highest increase among the top 10 tech metro areas.

Previously, people were moving to the suburb and looking for more living space because of the practice of working from home. As the pandemic began to be at a better situation and all business markets returned to normal, home-based workers returned to their familiar offices in the downtown area, and even though some large technology companies continue to have a work-from-home policy, it is understood that they still have to return to their offices at least 2 or 3 times a week.

Who wants to spend more than 2 hours a day just in traffic? It’s better for everyone to move back to the busy metropolitan area!

For those who want to invest in a condo, look no further!

Experts, like Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale, said as demand grew for more places to live, supply was dropping, leading to a spike in prices.

“If there were a lot of homes sitting then that would mean renters could have their pick of what was available and landlords may be a little more flexible in negotiating deals,” Hale said. “But when there aren’t a lot of homes available and there are a lot of renters out there, it’s really the landlords calling the shots and that means higher prices.”

Hale said while COVID-19 had heightened interest in housing, many Americans were also nearing 30 years old, the age when most people buy their first home.

“If you look at the millennial generation in particular, the largest single year age groups of millennials are turning 30 last year, this year and the next couple of years,” Hale said. “That’s a really strong amount of home buyer demand being created just because so many young people are hitting ages where they typically think about settling down, starting a family, maybe buying their first home.”

The U.S. median rental price hit the highest point in two years in May of 2021, increasing 5.5% year-over-year. Hale said prices were growing at faster-than-normal rates even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If you look all the way back to the recovery from the last recession, we’ve seen building but it really hasn’t paced with the number of households being created and the number of people who need homes,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons we see not many homes for sale and prices going up.”

Of course home buyers is still enthusiastic about home purchasing, and in fact the number of people choosing to rent is much more than those home buyers!

The June Rental Market Report found that rents for one- and two-bedroom homes nationwide reached their highest levels since March 2019.

Prices for one-bedroom and two-bedroom homes are at their highest levels in 27 months.
Two-bedroom rental prices continued to increase, rising an average of 10.2% year-over-year.
One-bedroom rents increased 8% year-over-year.
The median house rent reached $1,575, an increase of 8.1 percent.

The median rent for apartments in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area was $1,910 in June. The median rent for Studio apartments was $1,545, the median rent for 1-bedroom apartments was $1,923 and the median rent for 2-bedroom apartments was $2,126.

Article is provided and reproduced from wwmt.com. “May Report: U.S. rentals reach highest prices in two years” By Lexie Petrovic. As well as realtor.com. “June Rental Data: U.S. Rental Prices Reach Highest Point in Two Years” by Nicolas Bedo and Danielle Hale.