A Tour of Seattle’s Luxury Apartments & $16k a Month Penthouses!
A small group of real estate agents specializing in downtown condos, took a break from condos to check out the latest luxury apartment buildings and their penthouses and were surprised to find that apartments have come a long way!
The new apartment buildings are simply amazing. Many feature lobbies that feel like a luxury hotel and are chock full of amenities. Aside from the expected rooftop deck we saw apartments with yoga rooms, gyms with Peloton bikes, music studios (three apartments have them!), art rooms, premium dog lounges, hip theatre rooms (some outdoors), pool tables, foosball, vegetable + fruit gardens, and more. From a services perspective, one apartment, the Sequel, is connected to the Thompson Hotel, giving you full access to their room service and more. The finishes (at least for penthouses) impressed as well – we saw homes with walls of floor-to-ceiling windows with motorized shades, kitchens with Subzero, wine fridges, and 36″ gas cooktops.
The penthouses we saw ranged in price from $5,540 at the Elara which featured its own monster patio, to $16,600 a month at the West Edge with many in between. My favorite of what we saw was a $11,000 a month southwest corner penthouse at Tower 12.
My takeaways:
- Anyone living in a new or newer apartment building and considering buying a condo is likely going to be disappointed with the condo inventory we have. Most condo buildings are 10+ years old and the finishes, amenities and service don’t match what they’ve come to expect living in a new apartment.
- In terms of the cost of renting versus buying, many of these apartments felt like a better deal than buying a condo and are certainly a better deal than buying any of the upcoming brand new condos.
- Condo owners who are renting out their (older) units can’t expect to get the prices that these apartments are getting. They also should know that the security deposit for an apartment is usually $500 so good luck charging first month, last months and whatever else you think you can get.
- So good luck to the folks buying at the new condo buildings expecting to put 20% down and cash flow.
- These apartments aren’t as vacant as the newspapers would have you believe. All the apartment managers we met are very bullish on Seattle and are not at all worried about their vacancy rates. There are incentives now, typically 1-2 months free, but those will disappear in the spring. The incentives are a seasonal thing, not a collapsing market thing.
- All the penthouses had cheap cabinets, not that most people would notice.
Some of the amenities that we saw
You gotta have a flashy fire wall
Nice views
Agents enjoying the tour
Thanks to Ashley and Kim at Pointe3 for putting the tour together. For me at least, it was really eye opening.
