This November, Seattle and Los Angeles both passed ambitious, long-term ballot measures to fund major transit improvements in the coming decades, while the Bay Area won some and lost some piecemeal measures. Looking forward, can the Bay Area set its sights higher to envision and fund a more ambitious regional transportation network?
Seattle’s successful ST3 provides $53Billion over 25 years for 62 new miles of light rail, expanding the network by a factor of 5 (see map), plus Bus Rapid Transit and express bus services and major station access improvements. Similarly Los Angeles’ Measure M will raise $120Billion over 40 years, including $80 billion for transit, and 8% toward bicycle and pedestrian improvements.
My feeling too. Seattle is doing something right. It has the most AI professionals, most of the AI startups are there. Many SFBA’s behavior may be self-inflicting.
Right. I need to hedge my bets. The housing and traffic situations are slowly killing the Bay Area, and people have their heads in the sand. You can’t just say “we have better weather ha ha ha” and wish these problems away.
Any Seattle landlords here? Want to gather some opinions where to look in Seattle. I don’t know that town at all…
Historically Seattle appreciation is ok, not great.
I’m concerned by its small population. Seattle has only 650k and Bellevue has 150k. All together it equals the 7x7 SF.
Also it’s population is not very diverse economically. The political resistance to housing development is not very strong.
In BA, there are many bad neighborhoods where homebuyers want to avoid at high cost. In Seatle, most neighborhoods are safe to live, so there’s a lack of purchasing power concentration.
Population growth is the key. That’s what drives up prices. They don’t have the same ridiculous anti-develoment attitude. I think that’ll limit appreciation some, but it’ll still easily beat the national average. What do you mean it’s not economically diverse?
Downtown is mostly condos and TH. You don’t have to far to find SFH though.
It’s a tiny sample size, but I had 4 millennial working for me 2 companies ago. 2 of 4 have since moved to Seattle. They both love it.
Seattle beats SFBA in many areas for the last couple years, except weather but if ppl like weather that much why not move to San Diego for instance where weather is far better than in SFBA. Being an engineer I was argue with my wife to move to Seattle a year ago and explained her all benefits (and there are lot’s of them honestly) and she agreed with them but she is so stubborn, she has her parents here and doesn’t want to move until they are here, oh well. If I would be single I would move there.
I do think we missed the boat…I was looking at a 4-plex in Seattle like four years ago when I contemplated about moving over there and I remember it only being around $700s.
Bellevue is Microsoft-land, right? Is that where the tech is most concentrated? Where is Amazon? See, I really know nothing about Seattle. Would appreciate a cheatsheet.
Microsoft - Redmond
Tablleau - North side of Lake Union near a Google and Adobe
Expedia - Bellevue
Amazon - Seattle South Lake Union
Google - adding 1900 employees next to Amazon
Boeing - south of downtown near the airport
F5 - NW of downtown on the water
EMC Isilon - next to football stadium
Zillow - Downtown
Redfin is there. What more could you want?
Bellevue wouldn’t be on my list of choices. It’s basically suburbia. I think near public transit expansion would be the best ROI. There’s very little parking. A high percent of people take public transportation. Amazon gives all employees an Orca card for unlimited public transportation usage. The areas along their light rail are gentrifying similar to areas along BART here.
That’s a large bill gone. People can save and afford more for housing. Property taxes are still only 1% of property value.