> There's no price-fixing by landlords based on incomes, it's supply and demand. Sorta yea. Realistically traditional Econ 101 concepts don’t always apply to h

> There's no price-fixing by landlords based on incomes, it's supply and demand. Sorta yea. Realistically traditional Econ 101 concepts don’t always apply to housing. Supply is limited and can’t be increased as much as demand because building housing is quite hard and conversely demand is capped at the household income of people who will live there (eg Medina vs Renton are entirely different markets). Generally, people pay ~25% of their household income on housing (once they leave being low-income). Therefore prices will trend to that value for the given demographics. Because people can out bid each other on purchasing or landlords will charge higher rent prices knowing someone will pay it. Redmond is wealthier than seattle (as a rich suburb), and I bet the median cost-to-acquire-housing in Redmond is greater than seattle even if the cost of a “750sqft 1br with parking” is cheaper. Being a family town with a good school, people probably want multi bedroom housing, and probably want a yard etc. So people who will live alone with a one bedroom is different from most of Redmond.