Is Seattle's Apartment Boom Overbuilt?

If you’ve seen new apartment buildings sprouting up left and right in your neighborhood, you’re not the only one. Developers are planning on opening more apartments this year, than they have in the past 20 years, and plan on continuing to built throughout 2014 too. The majority of the building will be done in the downtown neighborhoods, and to some watching, it seems like a classic act of over the top real estate. According to the Seattle Times, many banks and others increased their financing for apartments in 2012, but some lenders are becoming more cautious, with the understanding that when new apartments open when rental rates are higher, they might have to offer deeper discounts to fill vacancies.  Concerns aren’t running high at this stage in the game, but if construction continues at the rate it is going, many are concerned that a Seattle apartment bubble is in place, is demands aren’t keeping up to pace.

On the other end, construction wouldn’t be booming if vacancies weren’t at the lowest they’ve been in over a decade, which has caused rent to skyrocket. The market rate is currently well below 5%, and even below 3% in some neighborhoods, causing an unbalance between the hierarchy in power between landlords and tenants. According to the Times, apartment construction and rent growth in Seattle is more intense than in most of the nation. Apartment developers are flocking to Seattle due to the strong job growth projections, but are the estimates going to cause the city to be overbuilt? For more information on Seattle’s apartment growth, visit the Seattle Times. If you’re currently searching for a new apartment, check out some of these Seattle Rentals.