Feasibility Study Company Independent Feasibility Analysis

Washington · Market Intelligence

Washington Feasibility Studies

An independent, lender-grade feasibility practice for Washington across SBA 7(a) and 504, USDA Rural Development, EB-5, and conventional capital. This page is our standing, sourced read on where Washington markets are oversupplied, how deals actually get funded by region, and where Washington feasibility studies fail review.

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36.5%
Downtown Seattle office vacancy, Q1 2026 — the nation's highest, vs. ~18% U.S.6
8.0M
Residents, April 2024 — the 13th-largest state1
9.683%
2026 statutory cap on rent increases under HB 121719
2,897 MW
Grant County large-load queue vs. a ~1,050 MW peak16
The Washington Thesis

A statewide Washington number is indefensible.

Washington rewards feasibility work and punishes shortcuts. It carries no personal income tax and ranks among the country's strongest in-migration states, yet the decisive fact for underwriting is that it runs three divergent economies that behave oppositely in the same asset class. Multifamily is the clearest proof: Seattle proper posted about 7.3 percent vacancy on a slightly negative rent trend near $2,112 (Kidder Mathews, Q1 2026), while Spokane's vacancy improved to 7.47 percent in Q2 2026 with owners beginning to raise rents again (SVN Cornerstone, June 2026).25 The same split runs through office, where downtown Seattle sits at 36.5 percent vacancy against a resilient Bellevue Eastside. A single Washington capture rate applied across these markets mis-underwrites by hundreds of basis points.

The state is also large and unevenly settled. Washington reached 8,035,700 residents as of April 1, 2024, growing by 84,550 that year with roughly 82 percent of the gain from net migration, and more than two-thirds of that growth landed in the five largest metro counties.1 Seattle is not Spokane; Spokane is not the Tri-Cities; and the hydropower-fed data-center Columbia Basin resembles none of them. A study built on a statewide average misprices nearly every deal, so we underwrite Washington metro-by-metro, against the current pipeline, the regional funding channel, and the Washington-specific factors most studies miss.

What follows is organized as a working desk: a live oversupply monitor, a funding-routing map, the review failures that sink Washington studies, the regulatory edges that decide outcomes — full Certificate of Need, the Growth Management Act, and the HB 1217 rent-stabilization law — and a per-metro demand fingerprint. Every figure is dated and attributed in the sources below.

The Oversupply & Pipeline Monitor

Where Washington markets stand, metro by metro.

A supply-pressure read for each metro and asset class, refreshed each quarter from named primary sources. A "No read" means we hold no current tracked reading, not that the market is balanced. Metro reads are Q1–Q2 2026 unless noted; data current to Q2 2026.

Supply pressure: Oversupplied Balanced Undersupplied Digesting / softening
Metro / submarket Multifamily Self-Storage Industrial Office Hotel Pipeline
Seattle (King) Digesting7.1% metro vac. Undersupplied4.3 sf/capita Oversupplied11.5% vac., record Oversupplied36.5% CBD vac. Balanced~4.5% of stock
Bellevue / East King Balanced6.6% vac., $2,571 No read Digesting Digesting25.4% CBD; AI-led No read
Everett / Snohomish Balanced6.1%, region's tightest No read SofteningBoeing-exposed No read No read
Kent Valley / South King OversuppliedLargest metro rent declines No read OversuppliedBig-box glut; imports −21% No read No read
Spokane Digesting7.47%, recovering No read No read No read No read
Tri-Cities / Eastern WA No readAg & Hanford growth No read No read No read No read
Quincy / Columbia Basin No read No read UndersuppliedPower-capped; 2,897 MW queue No read No read

Readings compiled from sources 2–24 below. Vendor vacancy estimates for the same metro can differ — office vacancy in particular varies by geographic scope — and each figure is attributed at its point of use.

Multifamily: the Puget Sound wave has flipped the market tenant-favorable

Puget Sound absorbed a heavy 2021–2025 delivery wave and has turned tenant-favorable. Seattle metro vacancy ran about 7.1 percent in Q1 2026 with average rents flat to negative, and Seattle proper sat at 7.3 percent near $2,112, slightly negative year over year; new deliveries fell 59 percent to 1,760 units even as 17,813 units remained under construction, extending digestion into 2027 (Kidder Mathews, Q1 2026).2 The citywide median was $2,058, down 1.4 percent year over year (Apartment List, June 2026), while Yardi Matrix put the metro average nearer $2,004, up 0.3 percent, on 16,900 net new jobs and employment growth slowing to 0.8 percent (via RentSeattle, 2026).34 The Eastside diverges: East King ran 6.6 percent near $2,571 with Redmond posting positive rent growth, while South King (Auburn–Kent) carried the metro's largest annual declines.23 Spokane is the counter-cycle: vacancy improved to 7.47 percent in Q2 2026 from a 9.2 percent peak in Q3 2024 as construction fell to 784 units in 2025, and owners have begun raising rents again (SVN Cornerstone, June 2026).5

Self-storage: a supply-disciplined outlier — now taxed

Seattle is a supply-disciplined, structurally undersupplied outlier at about 4.3 square feet per capita against the roughly 7.0-to-7.8-square-foot national benchmark, with the average 10-by-10 non-climate unit near $180 per month, down 6.3 percent year over year, and just 23,737 square feet projected for 2026 completion, down 92.4 percent (StorageCafe / Yardi Matrix, March 2026).13 That scarcity draws capital: Seattle recorded the nation's second-highest storage sale pricing at about $309 per square foot (Connect CRE).13 The pro forma changed in 2026, however — Washington eliminated the B&O exemption for self-storage unit rentals and extended sales and use tax to storage rentals effective April 1, 2026, a direct hit to net operating income (RSM; Kiplinger).15

Industrial: a record-high vacancy after the big-box wave

The Puget Sound industrial market has flipped to a tenant's market at a record-high vacancy. Vacancy reached about 11.5 percent in Q1 2026, up roughly 230 basis points year over year, with net absorption of negative 0.8 million square feet year to date (Savills, Q1 2026; CBRE reported 11 percent).11 The Kent Valley — the largest West Coast big-box distribution concentration — bears the brunt, with HD Supply's 434,000-square-foot Kent renewal among the quarter's largest deals, while the development pipeline contracted sharply to about 2.5-to-3.1 million square feet, roughly 60 percent of it in Pierce County.11 Port-driven demand softened: Kent Valley international imports fell 21.2 percent year over year in May 2025 (CBRE via REBusinessOnline).12 The aerospace supply chain adds concentration risk — Boeing's Everett and Renton plants anchor Snohomish and south King flex demand, and the October 2024 restructuring is a live regional-demand variable (see failures below).20

Office: the nation's signature distress story, sharply bifurcated

Seattle office is the country's signature distress story, and it is sharply bifurcated. Downtown Seattle vacancy hit 36.5 percent in Q1 2026, up about 350 basis points year over year (Cushman & Wakefield), and the metro rate near 28 percent was the highest in the nation against a national average around 18 percent (Kidder Mathews); Bellevue's CBD ran 25.4 percent (Broderick Group / Kidder Mathews).67 The Eastside is the recovery engine, propped by an AI-leasing surge — OpenAI added 223,000 square feet at City Center Plaza and Uber took space at Four106 (CBRE via Connect CRE), Anthropic signed about 113,000 square feet at Dexter Yard North in South Lake Union (GeekWire / CoStar, July 2026), and Eastside gross rents reached $48.50 per square foot, up 9.1 percent (Cushman & Wakefield).9106 Downtown posted its first positive net absorption since Q1 2022 even as trophy towers shed an estimated $3.7 billion in assessed value since 2022 (Mohr Partners citing CoStar / King County Assessor, June 2026).8 Flight-to-quality and conversions define the path; commodity-grade product in oversupplied submarkets stays soft.

Hotels, senior housing, data centers, and life sciences

Seattle is a 2026 FIFA World Cup host city, but the demand spike is one-time and contested. A Visit Seattle study by Tourism Economics projected $845.6 million in economic impact and a $95.8 million tax-revenue boost (via KUOW, 2026), while the AHLA's FIFA World Cup 2026 Hotel Outlook (May 4, 2026; 205 respondents across 11 host markets) found nearly 80 percent of respondents in Seattle and three peer markets reporting booking pace below expectations, some describing the tournament as a "non-event."2324 The underlying pipeline is disciplined at roughly 2,300-to-2,400 rooms, about 4.5 percent of stock, so we read it balanced (MMCG, 2025).14 In senior housing, national occupancy reached 89.5 percent in Q1 2026, a nineteenth consecutive quarterly gain, with assisted living at 87.9 percent (NIC MAP, April 2026); Washington's CON caps skilled-nursing supply while assisted living competes on fundamentals, and the only Seattle-specific figure we could source was a dated 77.5 percent assisted-living occupancy (September 2022), so we build these on primary local research.22 The dominant Eastern Washington story is data centers: Grant County PUD reported 75 large-load applicants seeking 2,897 megawatts against a July peak near 1,050 megawatts, with Quincy the top area at 1,578 megawatts (APPA / newsdata.com, August 27, 2025), and greater Quincy's assessed value was projected above $8 billion in 2024, more than half from data centers (Data Center Frontier).1617 The binding constraint there is megawatts, not real estate. Seattle's South Lake Union life-science cluster is digesting elevated lab vacancy near 19 percent at the end of 2024, up from about 6 percent in 2019, with roughly 1.6 million square feet under construction about 53 percent pre-leased (Cushman & Wakefield; CBRE).69

The Funding-Routing Map

How a Washington deal actually gets funded.

Feasibility work exists to satisfy a specific reviewer. Knowing which district and channel funds your asset is half the battle. This is the routing most feasibility pages never publish.

SBA district coverage in Washington
One SBA district covers nearly the whole state; four southwest counties route to Portland.26
District officeRegion covered
Seattle District (Seattle & Spokane offices)All of Washington except the four southwest counties below, plus 10 northern Idaho counties; serves both the Puget Sound and Eastern Washington via the Spokane branch
Portland District (Oregon)Clark, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum, and Skamania counties in southwest Washington — the Portland-metro orbit

On the 504 side, Washington is served by Evergreen Business Capital, the Seattle-based CDC that describes itself as the largest in the Pacific Northwest — founded in 1980 and self-reporting more than 37,000 jobs supported and over $800 million in loans — with the Spokane-based Northwest Business Development Association the natural routing for Eastern and Central Washington; both leadership claims are self-reported and unresolved without the SBA data file.27 On the 7(a) side, Live Oak Bank held the number-one national dollar-volume rank, while Washington-heavy Preferred Lenders include WaFd Bank, Columbia Bank (Columbia Banking System), Banner Bank, HomeStreet, and Heritage Bank.26 For rural credits, USDA Business and Industry guaranteed loans route through the Washington state office in Olympia (State Director Kirk Pearson), with area offices in Wenatchee, Yakima, Spokane, Mount Vernon, and Port Angeles; eligibility covers areas outside cities above 50,000, leaving the Wenatchee and Yakima fruit districts, the Columbia Basin, Walla Walla, and the Palouse heavily USDA-eligible in the nation's leading apple state, about 67 percent of the U.S. crop at $1.99 billion in 2023.28 Two 2026 federal changes matter: the July 4, 2026 decoupling of the 7(a) and 504 caps to $10 million combined, the highest in agency history, and a March 1, 2026 citizenship rule limiting ownership to U.S. citizens and nationals, which contributed to a reported 18 percent drop in early-fiscal-2026 7(a) lending (single secondary source).2931

  • Puget Sound owner-occupied real estate plus equipment (Seattle–Bellevue–Tacoma–Everett)SBA 504 via Evergreen Business Capital paired with a Preferred Lender (WaFd, Columbia, Banner), or conventional / CMBS; SBA Seattle District Office.
  • Eastern Washington, Spokane, or Tri-Cities small-business CRESBA 504 via the Northwest Business Development Association plus a regional bank; SBA Spokane branch.
  • Rural ag, agri-processing, or rural hospitality outside metro cores above 50,000 populationUSDA Business & Industry, REAP, or Community Facilities through the Olympia state office — which requires an independent third-party feasibility study.
  • A business acquisition plus real estate on one dealAfter July 4, 2026, stack a 7(a) up to $5M and a 504 up to $5M for $10M combined; sequence the 7(a) first.
  • A southwest Washington deal in Clark, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum, or SkamaniaRoute to the SBA Portland District Office, not Seattle.
Common Review Failures

How Washington feasibility studies fail review.

Each failure below is tied to a real Washington number. These are the recurring reasons a Washington study loses credibility with a lender or agency, engineered out of our deliverables before they ship.

  1. Statewide-average error

    Blending the expensive, tech-driven Puget Sound (Seattle proper $2,112; East King $2,571 — Kidder Mathews Q1 2026) with Spokane (roughly $1,190–$1,345 by unit, Rent.com 2026) and rural Eastern Washington produces a number that fits no actual submarket. A statewide multifamily rent or vacancy assumption is the first rejection trigger.232

  2. Tech-cycle concentration — the signature Puget Sound failure mode

    The Seattle–Bellevue economy is heavily concentrated in Amazon and Microsoft, and metro employment growth slowed to 0.8 percent year over year (Yardi Matrix via RentSeattle, 2026). Underwriting Puget Sound office, multifamily, or retail to peak-tech-cycle absorption is dangerous, though the AI-leasing surge (OpenAI, Anthropic, Uber) is a partial 2026 offset concentrated on the Eastside and in South Lake Union.49

  3. Aerospace / Boeing concentration risk

    Boeing's roughly 17,000-worker (10 percent) layoff in October 2024, its 767 freighter wind-down, and the 2024 machinists strike concentrate demand risk in Snohomish, where aerospace is 12.6 percent of county employment (WA ESD, Q1 2024). A study for industrial, flex, or workforce housing in Everett or Renton must stress-test Boeing production rates.2021

  4. Oversupply blindness

    Puget Sound industrial vacancy hit a record near 11.5 percent with negative 0.8 million square feet of absorption (Savills, Q1 2026), and Seattle multifamily deliveries pushed vacancy to about 7.1 percent with flat-to-negative rents. Underwriting 2021-era rent growth or sub-5-percent industrial vacancy (the Kent Valley was 4.2 percent in Q3 2022) is a documented failure mode.112

  5. HB 1217 rent-stabilization mispricing

    Washington capped annual rent increases at the lesser of 7 percent plus CPI or 10 percent (a 9.683 percent maximum for 2026, WA Department of Commerce), with a first-year freeze, 90-day notice, and a 12-year new-construction exemption. Combined with the Growth Management Act, the 2023 middle-housing law, and prevailing wage, pro forma rent growth above the statutory cap for stabilized assets is indefensible.1933

  6. Seismic and natural-hazard mispricing

    Washington faces the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the Seattle Fault, Mount Rainier lahar risk, and Eastern Washington wildfire. Seismic design and earthquake insurance are material cost and underwriting factors; a defensible study prices them from current quotes and USGS and state hazard data rather than treating them as a rounding error.34

  7. Tax-environment mispricing

    Washington has no personal income tax but a Business & Occupation gross-receipts tax, a combined sales tax of 7.7 to 10.35 percent, a capital-gains tax reaching 9.9 percent above $1 million (SB 5813, 2025), and a new sales tax on self-storage rentals effective April 1, 2026 — a direct hit to that pro forma. National tax assumptions understate Washington operating drag.3015

Regulatory Edges

The Washington rules that decide feasibility outcomes.

Four regulatory realities separate a Washington study that survives review from one that does not. The first is the one competitors most often state wrong.

Certificate of Need: Washington is a full CON state

Washington is a full Certificate-of-Need state, administered by the Department of Health under RCW 70.38, the Health Planning and Resources Development Act, and WAC 246-310.25 CON gates new hospitals (and the sale, purchase, or lease of an existing hospital), increases in licensed beds at a hospital, nursing home, or hospice care center, kidney-dialysis stations, Medicare and Medicaid home health and hospice agencies, ambulatory surgical facilities by definition, and new tertiary services such as open-heart surgery, organ transplantation, and specialized pediatric care. New hospital beds and nursing-home or skilled-nursing beds are gated, and the 2026 nursing-home capital-expenditure threshold is $3,894,451, up from $3,865,655 in 2024 (WAC 246-310-900).25 For those categories supply is capped, oversupply risk is low, and the CON application itself becomes a gating deliverable. Assisted living, by contrast, is not CON-gated and competes on market fundamentals. Competitors who assert that Washington has no CON are simply wrong.

The Growth Management Act, middle housing, and permitting

Washington's Growth Management Act (RCW 36.70A) requires the fast-growing counties and cities to designate urban growth areas and concentrate development inside them, so land supply is a policy variable, not merely a market one; the 2023 middle-housing law (HB 1110) then legalized duplex-to-fourplex density on many single-family lots in larger cities, changing the feasible-unit calculus.33 Layered onto prevailing-wage requirements and high Puget Sound construction costs, the permitting and entitlement overlay is a material schedule-and-cost risk that a Washington study must model explicitly rather than assume away.

HB 1217: statewide rent stabilization

Signed May 7, 2025, HB 1217 caps annual rent increases at the lesser of 7 percent plus CPI or 10 percent (5 percent for manufactured and mobile homes), with no increase in the first 12 months, 90-day notice, and a 12-year exemption for new construction from the certificate of occupancy; the Washington Department of Commerce set the 2026 maximum at 9.683 percent (Stoel Rives; Washington Attorney General).19 This is Washington's analog to New York's rent regime and a permanent underwriting variable: a pro forma that assumes rent growth above the statutory cap for a stabilized, non-exempt asset will not survive review.

The tax regime, the data-center exemption, and the tailwinds

Washington levies no personal income tax — a relative advantage — but a Business & Occupation gross-receipts tax, a combined sales tax of 7.7 to 10.35 percent, a capital-gains tax of 7 percent above roughly $270,000 rising to 9.9 percent above $1 million, an advanced-computing surcharge rising to 7.5 percent in January 2026, and an estate-tax top rate lifted to 35 percent.30 The rural data-center sales-tax exemption under RCW 82.14.370 underpins the Columbia Basin cluster's economics, but the legislature moved to curtail it in 2026 through SB 6231, which passed House Finance 8-6 in March 2026 — a live policy risk for any data-center-adjacent study.18 Cutting the other way, the SBA raised its combined 7(a)-plus-504 ceiling to $10 million effective July 4, 2026, materially enlarging bankable deal size.29

Metro Divergence

Washington markets, distinct demand fingerprints.

Each metro carries its own economic base and its own supply position. These are the units of analysis for a Washington study, and each anchors a dedicated market page.

Tech, aerospace & ports

Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue

Big tech (Amazon, Microsoft, and an AI-leasing surge), Boeing aerospace, cloud, the Northwest Seaport Alliance, and a top-10 life-science hub across a metro near 4.0 million. Multifamily is digesting a 2021–2025 wave near 7.1 percent, downtown office is the nation's most distressed at 36.5 percent, and self-storage is undersupplied.26

AI leasing & the Eastside

Bellevue & the Eastside

The recovery engine of Puget Sound office: OpenAI, Uber, and Anthropic expansions drove Eastside gross rents to $48.50 per square foot, up 9.1 percent, even as the Bellevue CBD held 25.4 percent vacancy. Multifamily runs a balanced 6.6 percent near $2,571.679

Boeing & aerospace

Everett & Snohomish County

The world's largest Boeing concentration anchors Snohomish, where aerospace is 12.6 percent of employment. The October 2024 restructuring (~17,000 layoffs) and 767 freighter wind-down make this the state's clearest single-industry risk; multifamily is the region's tightest at 6.1 percent.221

Inland Northwest

Spokane

Healthcare, higher education, distribution, and manufacturing anchor the Inland Northwest. Spokane is the counter-cycle multifamily market: vacancy improved to 7.47 percent in Q2 2026 from a 9.2 percent peak as construction fell to 784 units, and owners have begun raising rents again.5

Agriculture & Hanford

Tri-Cities (Kennewick–Pasco–Richland)

Agriculture, the Hanford site, and food processing drive a steady Eastern Washington growth market that is heavily USDA-eligible. Vendor metro vacancy is thin here, so we build these studies on primary local research rather than a Puget Sound proxy.28

Data centers & hydropower

Quincy & the Columbia Basin

A major, established U.S. data-center cluster on cheap Columbia River hydropower: Microsoft, Sabey, Vantage, and others. Grant County PUD's large-load queue of 2,897 megawatts against a ~1,050-megawatt peak means the binding constraint is power, not real estate — and the rural sales-tax exemption is under repeal pressure.1618

Portland-metro orbit

Vancouver & Clark County

Southwest Washington in the Portland metro orbit; the city reached about 202,600 residents in 2024. It routes to the SBA Portland District Office rather than Seattle, and its housing market tracks Oregon as much as Washington.126

Orchards & USDA territory

Yakima, Wenatchee & rural agriculture

Orchards, hops, wine, and the nation's leading apple crop (~67 percent of U.S. output, $1.99 billion in 2023) anchor Central Washington. This is core USDA Business & Industry and REAP territory, where a rural feasibility study is a funding prerequisite.28

By Asset Class

Washington feasibility studies by asset class.

Each asset class carries its own Washington demand drivers, from the Puget Sound tech cycle to HB 1217 rent stabilization to Cascadia seismic risk. Explore the analytical approach by property type.

Washington Questions

Washington feasibility study questions.

Does Washington require a feasibility study for an SBA loan?

Under SBA SOP 50 10 8, a feasibility study is discretionary rather than universally mandated, and lenders commonly require one for special-purpose properties and startup or ground-up projects that lack operating history. USDA Business and Industry credits, common in rural Eastern Washington, do require an independent third-party feasibility study, and Washington's concentration of special-purpose and hospitality collateral means feasibility analysis is frequently expected.

Does Washington have a Certificate of Need law?

Yes. Washington is a full Certificate-of-Need state, administered by the Department of Health under RCW 70.38 and WAC 246-310. CON gates new hospitals, added hospital and nursing-home or skilled-nursing beds, kidney-dialysis stations, hospice and home-health agencies, ambulatory surgical facilities, and new tertiary services. The 2026 nursing-home capital-expenditure threshold is $3,894,451. Competitors who state that Washington has no CON are simply wrong; assisted living, by contrast, is not CON-gated.

Which Washington real estate markets are oversupplied right now?

As of Q1–Q2 2026, downtown Seattle office is the nation's most distressed at 36.5 percent vacancy, and Puget Sound industrial hit a record near 11.5 percent after a big-box wave, deepest in the Kent Valley. Seattle multifamily is digesting near 7.1 percent with flat-to-negative rents, while Spokane is recovering to 7.47 percent. Seattle self-storage is the outlier, structurally undersupplied at about 4.3 square feet per capita.

How does HB 1217 rent stabilization affect feasibility?

HB 1217, effective May 7, 2025, caps annual rent increases at the lesser of 7 percent plus CPI or 10 percent — a 9.683 percent maximum for 2026 per the Department of Commerce — with no increase in the first 12 months, 90-day notice, and a 12-year exemption for new construction from the certificate of occupancy. Pro forma rent growth above the statutory cap for stabilized, non-exempt assets is indefensible.

Who funds SBA and USDA loans in Washington?

The SBA Seattle District Office, with offices in Seattle and Spokane, covers all of Washington except four southwest counties that route to Portland. 504 credits route through Evergreen Business Capital in the Puget Sound and the Northwest Business Development Association in Eastern Washington, with WaFd, Columbia, and Banner among the active 7(a) Preferred Lenders. USDA Business and Industry loans route through the Olympia state office, and the combined 7(a)-plus-504 cap rose to $10 million on July 4, 2026.

What is the Eastern Washington data-center power constraint?

Grant County's Quincy area is a major U.S. data-center cluster on Columbia River hydropower, but power is now the binding constraint: the PUD reported 75 large-load applicants seeking 2,897 megawatts against a summer peak near 1,050 megawatts (August 2025). The rural data-center sales-tax exemption under RCW 82.14.370 underpins the economics but faced a 2026 partial-repeal effort (SB 6231), so a data-center-adjacent study must underwrite both megawatts and tax policy, not just real estate.

How is a Washington feasibility study different from a national one?

Washington runs three divergent economies — the tech-and-aerospace Puget Sound, Spokane and the Inland Northwest, and agricultural Eastern Washington — that behave oppositely in the same asset class, so a statewide assumption fits no actual submarket. A defensible study is built metro-by-metro against the current pipeline and the regional funding channel, and it prices the Washington-specific factors most studies miss: full Certificate of Need, HB 1217 rent stabilization, the tech and Boeing concentration, the Columbia Basin data-center power constraint, and Cascadia seismic risk.

Underwriting a Washington project? Start with the market read.

A methodology briefing walks through the analytical framework, the deliverable composition, and the current Washington market data for your metro and asset class — including the Certificate-of-Need, HB 1217, tech-and-Boeing concentration, and data-center power factors that decide Washington outcomes.

Request a methodology briefing
Sources

Data sources and dates.

Every figure on this page traces to a named authority. Real-estate readings are point-in-time and vendor-dependent; where vendors disagree — office vacancy in particular differs by geographic scope — the range is shown and each is attributed at its point of use.

  1. Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM), April 1, 2024 population estimates (state 8,035,700; +84,550 in 2024, ~82% net migration; Seattle 797,700; King County ~2.38M; Vancouver ~202,600).
  2. Kidder Mathews, Puget Sound Multifamily Market Report (Q1 2026): metro vacancy 7.1%, Seattle proper 7.3% at ~$2,112, East King 6.6% at ~$2,571, Snohomish 6.1% at ~$1,940; deliveries down 59% to 1,760 units, 17,813 under construction.
  3. Apartment List, Seattle rent estimates (June 2026): citywide median $2,058, down 1.4% YoY; Redmond +2.0% YoY; South King the metro's largest annual declines.
  4. Yardi Matrix, Seattle multifamily and employment data via RentSeattle (2026): ~$2,004 average rent, +0.3% YoY; 16,900 net new jobs; metro employment growth 0.8% YoY.
  5. SVN Cornerstone, Spokane Multifamily Market Report (June 2026): vacancy 7.47% in Q2 2026 from a 9.2% peak in Q3 2024; deliveries 1,699 units (2023), 2,053 (2024), 784 (2025).
  6. Cushman & Wakefield, Seattle office and life-science market reports (Q1 2026): Downtown Seattle office vacancy 36.5%, up ~350 bps YoY; Eastside average gross rents $48.50/SF, +9.1% YoY; lab vacancy ~19% at end-2024 from ~6% in 2019.
  7. Kidder Mathews, Puget Sound Office Report (Q1 2026), and Broderick Group (Q1 2026): metro office vacancy ~28%, highest in the nation vs. ~18% national; Bellevue CBD 25.4%.
  8. Mohr Partners (June 2026), citing CoStar and King County Assessor data: Q2 metro ~16.7% / CBD ~35.6% under a different geographic scope; Downtown's first positive net absorption since Q1 2022; ~$3.7B in trophy-tower assessed value shed since 2022; ~80% of ~$578B in US AI venture funding routed via the Bay Area and Seattle (CBRE).
  9. CBRE via Connect CRE (Q1 2026): OpenAI +223,000 SF at City Center Plaza; Uber at Four106; Seattle life science ~1.6 MSF under construction, ~53% pre-leased.
  10. GeekWire / CoStar (July 2026): Anthropic ~113,000 SF at Dexter Yard North, South Lake Union; Seattle one-year data-center moratorium under consideration (GeekWire, January 2026).
  11. Savills, Puget Sound Industrial Market Report (Q1 2026): vacancy ~11.5%, up ~230 bps YoY and a record high; net absorption negative 0.8 MSF YTD; HD Supply's 434,000-SF Kent renewal; pipeline ~2.5–3.1 MSF, ~60% in Pierce County. CBRE reported 11%.
  12. CBRE via REBusinessOnline: Kent Valley international imports down 21.2% YoY (May 2025).
  13. StorageCafe / Yardi Matrix (March 2026): Seattle 4.3 SF per capita; average 10x10 non-climate unit ~$180/month, down 6.3% YoY; 23,737 SF projected for 2026 completion, down 92.4% YoY; national benchmark ~7.0–7.8 SF (Multi-Housing News). Connect CRE: Seattle storage sale pricing ~$309/SF, second-highest nationally.
  14. MMCG (2025): Seattle hotel pipeline ~2,300–2,400 rooms, ~4.5% of stock; Seattle grouped among supply-constrained storage metros.
  15. RSM and Kiplinger (2025–2026): Washington eliminated the B&O exemption for self-storage unit rentals and extended sales and use tax to self-storage rentals effective April 1, 2026.
  16. Grant County PUD (Andy Wendell to commissioners, August 27, 2025), via the American Public Power Association / newsdata.com: 75 large-load applicants seeking 2,897 MW; data centers 1,568 MW; Quincy the top area at 1,578 MW; July peak ~1,050 MW.
  17. Data Center Frontier, citing Grant County: greater Quincy assessed value projected above $8B in 2024, more than half from data centers; PUD ~1,050 MW average output, >66% hydro. KUOW / NPR (2025): Quincy power and water "maxed out."
  18. Washington SB 6231 / E2SHB 2515 (2026 partial-repeal effort; SB 6231 passed House Finance 8-6, March 2026); RCW 82.14.370 rural data-center exemption; HB 1846 (2022) urban expansion.
  19. Washington HB 1217 (signed May 7, 2025); Stoel Rives and Washington Attorney General summaries; Washington Department of Commerce 2026 maximum rent increase of 9.683%.
  20. Seattle Times (October 2024): Boeing ~17,000 layoffs (10% of ~170,000 global workforce); Everett 767 freighter production ending (2027); 777X delayed to 2026.
  21. Washington Employment Security Department (ESD): August 2025 release (of ~66,000 Washington Boeing employees, 2,192 laid off in January 2025, 2,141 (98%) in Snohomish and King counties; $2M US DOL National Dislocated Worker Grant); ESD Q1 2024 (aerospace 2.6% of state, 2.9% of King, 12.6% of Snohomish employment).
  22. NIC / NIC MAP Vision (April 23, 2026): senior-housing occupancy 89.5% in Q1 2026, a 19th consecutive quarterly gain; independent living above 91%, assisted living 87.9%. NIC MAP blog: Seattle assisted-living occupancy 77.5% (September 2022).
  23. Visit Seattle / Tourism Economics (a group within Oxford Economics), via KUOW (2026): projected FIFA World Cup impact of $845.6 million and a $95.8 million tax-revenue boost.
  24. American Hotel & Lodging Association, "FIFA World Cup 2026 Hotel Outlook" (released May 4, 2026; 205 respondents across 11 US host markets): nearly 80% of Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco respondents reported booking pace below expectations, some calling it a "non-event."
  25. Washington State Department of Health, Certificate of Need Program; RCW 70.38 and WAC 246-310; 2026 nursing-home capital-expenditure threshold $3,894,451, up from $3,865,655 in 2024 (WAC 246-310-900).
  26. U.S. Small Business Administration, Seattle District Office directory (2026): serves all of Washington except Clark, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum, and Skamania counties (Portland District) plus 10 northern Idaho counties; offices in Seattle and Spokane. Washington-active 7(a) Preferred Lenders include WaFd, Columbia, Banner, HomeStreet, and Heritage; Live Oak Bank ranked #1 nationally by dollar volume.
  27. Evergreen Business Capital public disclosures (self-reported: largest Pacific Northwest CDC, founded 1980, >37,000 jobs supported, >$800M in loans); Northwest Business Development Association (Spokane), nwbusiness.org. "Largest/#1" claims are self-reported and unresolved without data.sba.gov.
  28. USDA Rural Development, Washington State Office, Olympia (State Director Kirk Pearson; area offices in Wenatchee, Yakima, Spokane, Mount Vernon, and Port Angeles); Washington apple crop ~67% of the US total, valued at $1.99 billion in 2023.
  29. SBA Policy Notice 5000-879058 / News Release 26-52 (announced May 18, 2026; effective July 4, 2026): combined 7(a)-plus-504 cap of $10 million; NAGGL and NWBDA summaries.
  30. Holland & Knight, RSM, BDO, and Kiplinger (2025): Washington tax summary — no personal income tax; Business & Occupation gross-receipts tax; combined sales tax 7.7%–10.35%; capital-gains tax 7% (above ~$270,000) rising to 9.9% (above $1M, SB 5813, 2025); advanced-computing surcharge to 7.5% (January 2026); estate-tax top rate 35% (deaths on/after July 1, 2025).
  31. ClearlyAcquired (2026): March 1, 2026 SBA citizenship rule limiting ownership to 100% US citizens and nationals; reported ~18% drop in 7(a) lending in the first five months of FY2026 (single secondary source).
  32. Rent.com (2026): Spokane average rents roughly $1,190–$1,345 by unit type.
  33. Washington Growth Management Act (RCW 36.70A); 2023 middle-housing law (HB 1110); Washington prevailing-wage requirements (state and Stoel Rives summaries).
  34. U.S. Geological Survey and Washington Department of Natural Resources: Cascadia Subduction Zone, Seattle Fault, and Mount Rainier lahar hazard data; Washington seismic building-code provisions. No single Washington earthquake-insurance or construction-premium figure is asserted here; it is priced per project from current quotes.