Rents in the Seattle metro area might actually ease up next year: A guy named Tom Cain, who has studied the local market for decades, thinks the Seattle area rental market is at a turning point. He says the rental market peaked in the summer and fall of this year and rent increases are going to start slowing down, reports Mike Rosenberg of The Seattle Times. While rents are still up 7.9 percent across King and Snohomish Counties compared to this time last year, that’s down from “the consistent double-digit annual hikes” seen over the past few years, Mike writes. Are rents easing up near you? Check out his story to find out.
Hear from two black Seattleites about why one is leaving town and the other is staying: Musician Adra Boo, a native Seattleite, and her friend Jennifer Peterson, who has lived in Seattle since the early 90s, share an insightful conversation about what it’s like to constantly count the number of other black people when they walk into a room in Seattle. Don’t miss this KUOW interview.
Where should you go to check out the latest restaurant openings in Seattle? The Central District. “Not a lot has been written about the Central District’s burgeoning restaurant scene, in part because many Seattleites are so deeply troubled over the gentrification it represents,” writes Kathryn Robinson of Seattle Met. Some of these restaurants have “genuine ties to the neighborhood,” Kathryn writes. Others, not so much. Sounds like something we should talk more about.