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I'm glad you brought this up, as it lets me help clarify a few points of contention: 1) When a city has constrained housing supply, wealthy people compete in l

I'm glad you brought this up, as it lets me help clarify a few points of contention: 1) When a city has constrained housing supply, wealthy people compete in lower tiers of the housing market, driving up prices. Building more luxury homes allows those people to stop bidding up mid-tier homes, taking some of the pressure off the housing market at large. Thus, while it might not feel like it, those luxury homes are a good thing for Seattle's housing market. The concept is called "filtering" and you can read more about it here. [1][2] 2) While it seems like Seattle is awash with cranes and construction is running rampant, it's surprisingly not enough to keep up with population/job growth. There have been so many people showing up in the city that housing stock just hasn't been able to keep up. Something like 20K people in the last year and only ~6K housing units. This is a large part of the housing problem in general, and there's nothing to be done but build even more (and make it easier to build, through re-zoning and densification). [1] http://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/ http://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/ [2] http://cityobservatory.org/how-luxury-housing-becomes-affordable/ http://cityobservatory.org/how-luxury-housing-becomes-afford...

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
I rented an apartment just last month and, at least for downtown Bellevue, the rental market is surprisingly weak because of all the new supply that has been coming online. Not enough to drive prices lower, but enough that rents weren't rising and many properties were even doing incentives. Not sure if this generalizes to Seattle, and it is downtown Bellevue, which isn't a very happening place.
- stephengillie 9y ago
  The advantage to living in Bellevue is that, after 7pm Seattle is just 20 minutes away. (Before 7 it's about an hour away.) There certainly are luxury apartments in Bellevue for cheaper than Seattle + 520 tolling.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    I have a baby, and getting to Seattle is just a dream so far. The only thing I've managed is to visit my aunt in West Seattle on a Sunday. Bellevue is boring as hell, but a great place to entertain and service a 9 month while staying close to job oppurtunities (though their is a lot more in Seattle these days then their ever was in the mid 90s when I was attending UW).
    - stephengillie 9y ago
      The person in the apartment above me has a kid, is that you? Are you on 12th? It's been a dream of mine, since attending UW, to live and work in Seattle. It was amazing to do as a student, but since graduation I can only find work across the lake. I finally gave in and moved across last year. Bellevue is boring, which makes for a great base of operations - I can hang out at home while traffic dies down (instead of networking at a bar), then goto other cities when highway demand is low. But yeah, people don't really live in this city, women don't really goto the expensive dive bars, and there's so much construction. It feels like there are a lot more people over here than last year. How many other people are also moving across the lake?

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

I rented an apartment just last month and, at least for downtown Bellevue, the rental market is surprisingly weak because of all the new supply that has been coming online. Not enough to drive prices lower, but enough that rents weren't rising and many properties were even doing incentives. Not sure if this generalizes to Seattle, and it is downtown Bellevue, which isn't a very happening place.

stephengillie 9y ago
The advantage to living in Bellevue is that, after 7pm Seattle is just 20 minutes away. (Before 7 it's about an hour away.) There certainly are luxury apartments in Bellevue for cheaper than Seattle + 520 tolling.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  I have a baby, and getting to Seattle is just a dream so far. The only thing I've managed is to visit my aunt in West Seattle on a Sunday. Bellevue is boring as hell, but a great place to entertain and service a 9 month while staying close to job oppurtunities (though their is a lot more in Seattle these days then their ever was in the mid 90s when I was attending UW).
  - stephengillie 9y ago
    The person in the apartment above me has a kid, is that you? Are you on 12th? It's been a dream of mine, since attending UW, to live and work in Seattle. It was amazing to do as a student, but since graduation I can only find work across the lake. I finally gave in and moved across last year. Bellevue is boring, which makes for a great base of operations - I can hang out at home while traffic dies down (instead of networking at a bar), then goto other cities when highway demand is low. But yeah, people don't really live in this city, women don't really goto the expensive dive bars, and there's so much construction. It feels like there are a lot more people over here than last year. How many other people are also moving across the lake?