If renting in Seattle have been a sport, it will require ability, luck, and rattling good credit score. Tenants vie for a great condo whereas navigating complicated ordinances, new payments, and perpetually rising prices. Go forward, roll the cube. However earlier than you do, be sure you know all the foundations.
Your safety deposit obtained docked
Landlords can’t preserve your deposit for regular put on like scuffed wooden flooring or a wobbly bathroom. The digital library at Northwest Justice Venture’s Washington LawHelp.org holds lawyer-drafted letter templates for resolving safety deposit disputes and legalese-free explanations of tenants’ rights.
Neighborhood purchasing
Denny Triangle, Belltown, Pike Place Market, and South Lake Union have among the metropolis’s highest rents, whereas pockets of Bitter Lake, Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, and Mount Baker boast essentially the most reasonably priced.
Damaged sink
The clock is ticking. Landlords should start to repair some issues inside 24 hours: people who depart tenants with a security difficulty or with out water, electrical energy, or (in winter) warmth. They’ve 72 hours to get going on repairs to main home equipment and vital plumbing points, and 10 days for anything.
Software payment
Nonrefundable software charges can solely quantity to the precise price of any screenings; in Seattle, something above $45 per grownup is a possible crimson flag.
Hire hike
Washington’s HB 1217, the 2025 hire stabilization invoice sponsored by West Seattle’s state senator, Emily Alvarado, caps hire will increase at 7 % plus inflation, with a tough cease at 10 %. Within the regulation’s first quarter, simply eight landlords throughout the state have been caught breaking it. They have been fined $2,000 every. 2026 hire hikes can be capped at 9.683 %.
Navigate the First-in-Time Ordinance
For those who’re not first, you’re final. The First-in-Time Ordinance requires landlords to supply a rental settlement to the primary certified applicant who submits a whole software. The regulation, distinctive to Seattle when first handed in 2016 to keep away from housing discrimination (Portland has one now, too), confronted a number of authorized challenges earlier than the US Supreme Court docket declined to listen to its case in 2020, deferring to the Washington Supreme Court docket, which had unanimously dominated the edict authorized.
Easy methods to win housing in a primary come, first served world
- Stop your job. Welcome to your new place: home hunter. OK, not likely, however getting in first requires a great deal of free time to shortly act on new listings. Clear your schedule.
- Have all of the widespread paperwork and data able to speed-type into an software: revenue verification, references from earlier landlords, delivery dates of all occupants, the works.
- When in doubt, tour. Many landlords don’t take into account an software full till the potential tenant excursions the property, whether or not in individual or through a dwell video name.
- Contact property managers immediately. It’s not unusual for a whole bunch of candidates to submit prefilled Zillow apps inside hours of a brand new itemizing going dwell, however don’t get discouraged. Discuss with a human, arrange a tour, and be able to signal in case you like what you see.
Rental Gymnastics
About 50 % of renting households in Washington are rent-burdened. Which means they pay greater than 30 % of their incomes on hire plus utilities.
King County by the Numbers
- $2,146 Common hire
- $2.78 Common hire per sq. foot
- 771 Common sq. footage
- 263,503 Complete variety of models
