In case you didn’t see this article in last Sunday’s Seattle Times, the Seattle market is now the seventh-most-attractive market for apartment investors. With a current vacancy rate of 2-3 percent in Seattle and around 5 percent on the eastside, rents are definately on the upswing. A large part of the increasing demand is actually from roughtly 6000 units being converted to condos in the last few years.

While this certainly means more capital chasing after the available inventory, the increasing rental rates is still going to improve the CAP rate in the local market over the 4-5% we’ve seen for the last few years.