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http://realestate.msn.com/10-cities-where-rents-are-rising-the-most#10

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015562249_cityapartments10.html

http://www.linkedin.com/news?actionBar=&articleID=604950074&ids=0QdP0MdjAQc3oIejwRd3kRd30Sb34Vd34Ve3gMdyMUczgOe3wRc3oIe3sRcPoUd30S&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod-b-ttle-44

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/index.html

For those of you who would like to join our professional network – please visit us on LinkedIn.com at http://www.linkedin.com/company/real-property-associates and let us know how we are doing. Thanks!

http://www.bizjournals.com/mobile/seattle/news/2011/05/13/expect-new-highs-for-seattle.html

Medina, Mercer Island, Bellevue and Sammamish are obviously the most wealthy but how would the average Seattle resident feel about all of the new money, power and clout headed to the Eastside? Does anyone feel like Seattle’s political allies may head east and seek the new wealth? What would this look like for the Puget Sound Infrastructure and Roads Network if the road funds followed the wealth? Would we see more freeway development around Lake Sammamish and less projects along DT Seattle? Feel free to chime in…

To those who travel this infamous and antiquated elevated highway through downtown Seattle, prepare to be stuck in longer lines as the city gets ready to eliminate 1 lane in each direction. This will presumably be until they finish the tunnel replacement option and then I believe they will demolish the viaduct whole.  Anybody out there with any updates on this – fell free to comment below.

From the Biz Journal:

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/morning_call/2011/05/alaskan-way-viaduct-losing-a-lane-in.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2014624050_apartments29.html

As reported in the Seattle Times

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/437725_apartment25.html

While Seattle-area home sales and prices remain sluggish, the apartment market is heating up fast, according to a new report.

“Consumers are terrified about buying a home or condo today,” Dupre + Scott Apartment Advisors explained in their March Apartment Vacancy Report. “They are afraid prices will keep going down.”

That, and some change in consumer housing preferences, helped push the Puget Sound area’s market vacancy rate down from a recent peak of 7.2 percent in the fall of 2009 to 5 percent last fall to 4.6 now, Dupre and Scott wrote.

“Vacancies have been this low before, and lower. But not as often as you might think,” they wrote. “In the past 61 semi-annual surveys since March 1981, vacancies have been 4.6 percent or lower just 22 times. And they are heading lower.”

Rents have risen 2.5 percent from the recent bottom a year ago to $969 now, but are still below their 2008 peak, Dupre and Scott reported. They added that property managers also are offering concessions (such as free months) on half as many units as they were a year ago, with the value of those concessions also falling.

Market vacancy (which excludes new buildings still in lease-up) has fallen from a recession high of 6.8 percent in King County in the spring of 2009 to 4.3 percent now. Average rent in the county has risen 3.1 percent, to $1,049, since bottoming out a year ago, although it remains below the 2008 peak of $1,078.

“We expect vacancies to continue falling this year, rents to climb faster, and concessions to almost disappear because rental demand will increase faster than new supply,” Dupre and Scott wrote. “We expect developers will open the fewest new units this year compared to any year since 1972, with the possible exception of 1993.”