Wasn’t it just a year ago that we were still being regaled with stories about how tight the housing supply was in the Seattle area, and how our population has been growing so fast that construction just couldn’t keep up, so of course high home prices and increasing rents are going to continue forever and ever?
It looks like reality is a little bit, shall we say… different.
More than 100 condo buildings in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties — many of them apartments originally — are becoming rentals again because the units haven’t sold well in this down market, said Greg Wendelken, vice president and regional manager for brokerage Marcus & Millichap.
That, in combination with rising unemployment, will push the regional apartment vacancy rate to about 7.7 percent, Wendelken said, up from 5.6 percent last year and 4.3 percent in 2007.
Jim Hebert, of Bellevue-based Hebert Research, forecast a smaller increase, from 4.1 percent last year to 4.8 percent this year.
(Eric Pryne, Seattle Times, 02.05.2009)