Renters outnumber homeowners in six Seattle-area suburbs, according to data from Point2Homes.

Fort Lewis, the suburb with highest rentership rate, is an outlier — the military base has a rentership level of 98.2%.

But five more suburbs in the Puget Sound region have rentership rates above 50%: Tukwila at 59.6%, SeaTac at 54.9%, North Lynnwood at 54.5%, Fife at 53.5% and Sumner at 50.2%.

Sumner, specifically, switched to majority renter in just five years.

Rentership is also growing by leaps and bounds in Newcastle, which had only 382 renter households in 2018 but jumped to over 1,000 by 2023 — an 85.2% increase. The number of renter households also increased by 72.2% in Edgewood, 72.1% in Lake Stickney, 53.5% in Bothell East and 42.8% in Graham.

Across the region, rentership increased in 37 of Seattle’s 66 largest suburbs from 2018 to 2023.

Among principal cities in the area, Seattle, Lakewood and Redmond are all majority renter, and Bellevue is “approaching a similar tipping point,” Point2 said.

The state’s population boom is fueling that rental growth, both in the cities and suburbs: Washington increased from 2.8 million households in 2018 to over 3 million in 2023.

“While homeownership has seen a modest rise — increasing from 62.7% in 2018 to 63.9% in 2023 — 36.1% of Washingtonians still rent their homes, underscoring the importance of high-quality rental housing in the state’s broader housing ecosystem,” wrote Point2’s Andra Hopulele.