Rent Growth Cools As Supply Struggles
Seattle’s road to recovery is still slow, as supply chain challenges and labor shortages persisted in 2021. Through December, rents in the metro were up only 0.1% on a trailing three-month basis, while year-over-year growth was 12.4%. Mediocre numbers of new units kept Seattle rates at $2,048, well above the national level of $1,594.
Seattle’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.1%, representing the lowest level since the onset of the health crisis, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The employment market added 101,300 jobs across all sectors, up 6.2% in the 12 months ending in October. That’s 90 basis points more than the national average. The metro’s second-biggest sector—professional and business services—added 22,400 positions for an 8.5% increase. Tech giants have remained active in the metro, with both Amazon and Microsoft moving forward with their office projects in Redmond and Bellevue. Meanwhile, Meta added another 213,000 square feet of office space at the underway Building 13 in Bellevue’s Spring District.
Construction slowed down in 2021, with developers adding 7,960 units to the metro’s multifamily inventory, the lowest number since 2013. Seattle had 26,012 units across 43 multifamily properties under construction as of December, with an additional 93,000 units in the planning and permitting stages.
Read the full Matrix Multifamily Seattle Report-February 2022
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