Affordable apartment construction boomed in Seattle after the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, the metro added more affordable units than any other area in the country, according to an analysis from RentCafe.

Seattle added 14,290 income-restricted housing units between 2020 and 2024, up from an average of about 10,200 during the same time frame pre-pandemic. That represents an increase of about 40%. Meanwhile, overall apartment construction was steady, rising just 0.6% over five years.

Four Corners (via HNN Communities)

A huge contributor to the Puget Sound area’s affordable housing supply was Four Corners, a 430-unit development in Everett funded by a $1 million grant from the Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program (CHIP).

Affordable units — defined by RentCafe as those where rent doesn’t exceed 30% of the area median income — now make up nearly one in four new apartments in Seattle. Ten years ago, only about 17% of apartments were affordable.

Nationwide, builders and developers added almost 310,000 affordable apartments to the housing market from 2020 to 2024, with one-third of those deliveries occurring in 2024.