I continue to see a strong rental market, especially in the areas that support Microsoft.
If you have never been to the Microsoft Campus, you will be amazed. It’s nothing fancy…a bunch of nice office buildings, but the size is impressive. Its a beehive. A very busy beehive.
There are a lot of people working there, 40,000 people, and the company seems to be bringing in new employees daily. As a result, the surrounding areas have strong demand for rental housing.
Any property manager in Redmond, Kirkland, Bellevue, and Bothell is seeing strong demand for rental homes and a lot of that demand is from Microsoft employees. Of course their are non-Microsoft people renting homes, but when I see 50% of my rental applicants coming from Microsoft…it makes me take notice.
Maybe I should say the computer software, technology industry is pushing the demand because nearly all of the rental applicants I have seen in the last year have been in the Tech industries. I have been calling it the Microsoft micro-economy. I have made a mental note to make sure, when I have a choice, to purchase Microsoft products…its the least I can do.