The Belltown Neighborhood – Seattle, WA
The Belltown Neighborhood – Seattle, WA
Living in a densely urban location in a major city is not for everyone. If it’s for you… and you think downtown Seattle is where you might want to end up, then looking at Condos in Belltown will put you in good company.
Belltown is the name of a micro-neighborhood abutting the north end of the high-rise district in downtown Seattle, Washington. Pre-pandemic this was known as the go-to hot spot and was home to many tech workers who were able to walk to nearby amazon jobs and similar. High-prestige buildings like the Escala building and the Cristalla building were popular, but these come with high price tags, and an HOA costing upwards of $1,000/month.
The Belltown neighborhood is not just a place to live close to work, but affords many entertainments as well, especially night life – with many bars, restaurants and clubs.
If you end up waking up in a timely manner the next morning, you can visit Seattle’s year-round farmer’s market: Pike Place Market – which is just a few blocks away.
Condo Competition
Pre-pandemic, downtown Seattle was in growth mode and companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google were bringing tens of thousands of people to the South Lake Union area to work each day. Cranes filled the city skyline and lots of new high rise condos were being built.
During the pandemic, people were working from home and downtown Seattle (including the hip Belltown) had an emptying-out of workers and residents. Rents went down, prices went down, and people went away.
Now, in our post-pandemic era, employers are bringing people back to work and downtown Seattle seems to have avoided the downward spiral of death, for the most part. However, there are still lots of condominium buildings selling brand new units and wheeling and dealing. In talking to developers and their sales agents in the downtown core, there is a lot of foreign money coming in. Cash is king, and developers are offering sweet deals to get units sold.
This makes it hard for pre-existing units to sell for what they would have considered a “good price” – even with 10% price drops, listings get stale. The lack of crime enforcement and open drug use in the area (Belltown Park feels sketchy…) makes it less desirable than in the previous decades.
At a rooftop party of residents at one of these buildings, several were pinning hopes on the 2026 FIFA World Cup coming to Seattle and the Gates/Bezos funded $45 Million dollar walking trail connecting urban parks to help revitalize the area.
There is a supply and demand mis-match downtown right now, making condos in Belltown and surrounding area a better deal than they’ve been in years, but still not cheap when looking for affordable housing.
