Rental Real Estate for Commuters

Abstract

Western Washington residents near the Seattle metropolitan area are running out of living options, and major cities near the Puget Sound are where many major employers are located. These employers were identified as Microsoft (Redmond), Boeing (Everett and Seattle), Amazon (Seattle), and the University of Washington (Seattle and Bothell). Although there are some vacancies in the city and surrounding area, price has driven many who are seeking to rent residential real estate to look outside of heavily urbanized areas. Some commuters who rent are doing so as they look for long term housing (buying) as they are often from out of state or even out of the country. Specified locations that proved to be consistently listed as undesirable were the cities of Everett, Redmond, and Seattle. Five metrics are used for a suitability analysis: Price, travel time, Schooling, crime, and population density.