A $91K salary is needed to afford rent in the Seattle area

Axios

06-06-2025

You have to make nearly $91,000 per year to afford the typical monthly rent in the Seattle metropolitan area, according to a new report.
Why it matters: That's about 23% higher than what a Seattle-area household would have needed to earn five years ago, per the analysis from Zillow.
It's also about $10,000 more than the income needed to afford the typical rent nationwide, Zillow found.
What they did: Zillow assumed that rent should take up no more than 30% of household income — a common standard for calculating affordability.
Zoom in: By that measure, affording the typical Seattle area-rent — which came in at $2,271 in April — requires an annual income of $90,840.
That's the 11th-highest income needed among the dozens of U.S. metros analyzed by Zillow.
Yes, but: The median household income in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area was $110,744 in 2023 — well above what is needed to afford the typical monthly rent, per Zillow's analysis.
That said, a single person may be in for more of a struggle. Census data pegged the per capita income in Seattle at $82,508 in 2023.
What they're saying: "Housing costs have surged since pre-pandemic, with rents growing quite a bit faster than wages," Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, said in a news release.