Seattle region pays big part of nation's total rent

A couple of year-end rent rate reports offer some interesting numbers.

Nationwide, renters spent $504.4 billion in rent for 2018, according to Zillow’s HotPads.com. That’s up $12.6 billion from 2017.

The total works out to be “about $10 billion more than the GDP of Belgium,” according to HotPads’ blog.

New York’s metro paid the biggest chunk of the nation’s total rent at $55.65 billion, followed by the Los Angeles region at $40.42 billion.

Rent payments for the Seattle region totaled $9.8 billion for the year, according to the site.

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We have a bit more time before we see December’s local numbers, but rent website Zumper’s November review of area rental rates showed:

▪ Bellevue had the most expensive median one-bedroom rent: $2,030. Kirkland was No. 2 at $1,940. Seattle was third at $1,900. Tacoma was 13th on the list at $1,210.

▪ The cheapest was Marysville ($910) Lakewood ($960) and University Place ($1,030).

▪ The state median one-bedroom monthly rent rate for November was $1,263.

▪ Tacoma saw the largest growing rent rate in November compared with the previous month at 5.2 percent, followed by Redmond at 5.1 percent.

▪ Tacoma also had one the fastest growing rent rates year over year for November based on Zumper’s data, outpaced only by Puyallup, University Place and Auburn.

See the full report at https://bit.ly/2s3LRGq

KIRO