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That's incorrect: Seattle is building new apartments but only those who make large salaries can rent them. The population that used to pay reasonable prices for

That's incorrect: Seattle is building new apartments but only those who make large salaries can rent them. The population that used to pay reasonable prices for rentals now cannot afford the prices and are either leaving the city or in extreme cases living in the streets. In this respect Seattle is now closer to San Francisco than what you imagine.

Hermitian909 8y ago
I'm aware that most of the new housing is luxury apartments, but rents are finally dropping. I think the reality of the past 30 years is simply that prices were increasing faster than we could build for a long time and we had to play catch up.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
New apartments rent for more than older apartments, forcing them downmarket. So ya, new developments are priced higher, but enough of it has come online in the last year or two that down pressure is being applied to the rental market (though perhaps not enough?). At least rents aren’t rising as fast as they were.
imtringued 8y ago
You are asking the wrong questions. The only thing that matters is whether the population of Seattle increases and it does indeed grow more quickly than in San Francisco. San Francisco only sees some population growth because of a high influx of international migrants. The Americans are moving away to Seattle and other cheaper cities. The biggest injustice in the US is that thanks to globalization jobs are now concentrated in few major cities. But people cannot move where the jobs are because of opposition to new housing. Those cities are basically taking "jobs" hostage by pretending to care about the character of their neighborhood. As long as more construction is allowed and matches the number of new jobs then it simply doesn't matter how much some magical number called "rent" increases because the jobs that can pay for the market rate housing are already there but what's missing is housing capacity. Also all I can find about Seattle migration outflow is that there was a big dip in Q1 2018 but in Q2 there was a net inflow again. [0] [0] https://www.redfin.com/blog/q4-redfin-migration-report-seattle-reclaims-migration-destination-status/ https://www.redfin.com/blog/q4-redfin-migration-report-seatt...
- coliveira 8y ago
  You clearly don't know what the situation of Seattle is. The influx of people to Seattle is to work on high tech companies. These people make enough money to pay for the increasing costs of rent. The locals (Americans, by the way) are forced to leave the city because they can't afford to live here anymore. The poorer ones that have no prospect of finding jobs in another city become homeless. That's the perverse reality.

Hermitian909 8y ago

I'm aware that most of the new housing is luxury apartments, but rents are finally dropping. I think the reality of the past 30 years is simply that prices were increasing faster than we could build for a long time and we had to play catch up.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

New apartments rent for more than older apartments, forcing them downmarket. So ya, new developments are priced higher, but enough of it has come online in the last year or two that down pressure is being applied to the rental market (though perhaps not enough?). At least rents aren’t rising as fast as they were.

imtringued 8y ago

You are asking the wrong questions. The only thing that matters is whether the population of Seattle increases and it does indeed grow more quickly than in San Francisco. San Francisco only sees some population growth because of a high influx of international migrants. The Americans are moving away to Seattle and other cheaper cities. The biggest injustice in the US is that thanks to globalization jobs are now concentrated in few major cities. But people cannot move where the jobs are because of opposition to new housing. Those cities are basically taking "jobs" hostage by pretending to care about the character of their neighborhood. As long as more construction is allowed and matches the number of new jobs then it simply doesn't matter how much some magical number called "rent" increases because the jobs that can pay for the market rate housing are already there but what's missing is housing capacity. Also all I can find about Seattle migration outflow is that there was a big dip in Q1 2018 but in Q2 there was a net inflow again. [0] [0] https://www.redfin.com/blog/q4-redfin-migration-report-seattle-reclaims-migration-destination-status/ https://www.redfin.com/blog/q4-redfin-migration-report-seatt...

coliveira 8y ago
You clearly don't know what the situation of Seattle is. The influx of people to Seattle is to work on high tech companies. These people make enough money to pay for the increasing costs of rent. The locals (Americans, by the way) are forced to leave the city because they can't afford to live here anymore. The poorer ones that have no prospect of finding jobs in another city become homeless. That's the perverse reality.