Few Issaquah Rental Homes - Why? (Bellevue, Redmond: apartments, renters, crime)

[DallasYankee]

We just lucked out and secured our next rental in Issaquah, but I have noticed listings are few and far between there.
Sammamish and Bellevue always seem to have so many more rental houses available.
Is this because Issaquah is a truly desirable location (as we believe), or is there some other unrelated reason we are not aware of?
Thanks all in advance!

[Hemlock140]

Perhaps just that Issaquah is a much smaller city. Most of the rentals in Sammamish are in Klahanie, which was just annexed to the city in 2016, before that it was unincorporated but called Issaquah.

Compare population:
Sammamish - 66,630
Bellevue - 149,440
Issaquah - 39,505

[DallasYankee]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

Perhaps just that Issaquah is a much smaller city. Most of the rentals in Sammamish are in Klahanie, which was just annexed to the city in 2016, before that it was unincorporated but called Issaquah.

Compare population:
Sammamish - 66,630
Bellevue - 149,440
Issaquah - 39,505

Thanks Hemlock 140!
What bowls us over is just how many nice restaurants, like Tutta Bella, better gyms/fitness studios like 425, and chain stores like Trader Joes and Costco are all within a short driving distance from our new rental.
By contrast, the Fairwood area, which has a large population of people living in homes and apartment buildings, is a virtual shopping desert with no major department stores besides Big Lots and less than stellar eateries and a truly awful LA Fitness. In short very disappointing, considering the vast number of residents.
Issaquah seems newer and much more upscale with far varied offerings and less crime than Fairwood.
To be honest, we actually live in the secluded Lake Desire enclave but Fairwood is the closest area with any stores nearby so unless we want to drive for 30 minutes or longer, the local Safeway is our only grocery, so not many choices here at all.
Issaquah may be small, but it's definitely mighty in amenities!

[oregonwoodsmoke]

I'm going to take some guesses. Isn't Issaquah an expensive area? Landlords do not buy rental houses in expensive areas. They buy less expensive houses in inexpensive areas.

For two reasons. Most tenants can not afford high rent so they are looking for rentals where the rent is lower. Also many tenant are really hard on a house, and if you give them a nice place to live they are just as likely to damage it. Landlords try to buy rentals that have fewer features that can be damaged. Nice high priced houses usually have features that are expensive to repair or replace when they are damaged.

[Hemlock140]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

I'm going to take some guesses. Isn't Issaquah an expensive area? Landlords do not buy rental houses in expensive areas. They buy less expensive houses in inexpensive areas.

For two reasons. Most tenants can not afford high rent so they are looking for rentals where the rent is lower. Also many tenant are really hard on a house, and if you give them a nice place to live they are just as likely to damage it. Landlords try to buy rentals that have fewer features that can be damaged. Nice high priced houses usually have features that are expensive to repair or replace when they are damaged.

Issaquah is expensive at median home $1.1 million but is not as expensive as Sammamish $1.6, Bellevue $1.35, or Redmond $1.23, and those all have more rentals than Issaquah. Issaquah Highlands is still undergoing construction, some of those developments will have rentals, but they would be apartments, not houses. I have noticed that most of the rental houses in Bellevue are in the Lake Hills/Crossroads areas where there are older, smaller flat roofed houses, nothing comparable in the other cities.
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6066...8192?entry=ttu

[DallasYankee]

Thanks, guys, for your interesting perspectives!
Actually, our primary listing source, Zillow, has many Bellevue and some Sammamish, a few Redmond and even fewer Issaquah and Newcastle rental houses in the 4.5K + range. While up to about 4.7K is doable for us, 5K+ is not, and many of these really fancy homes do not allow cats, and sometimes no pets at all. Additionally, they require 6 months of bank statements and pay stubs, etc. to just prove your income and job security.
There are many Microsoft, Amazon, etc. executives who regularly compete for the nicest homes and it is very much a super contentious dog eat dog rental market.
In fact, when we recently put in an application for a lovely, large (3200 sq. feet) Sammamish ranch which was listed at $4500 monthly, there were a dozen applicants in front of us. Needless to say, our application was never even looked at, because there were so many worthy and wealthier renters already ahead of us in the queue.
We feel fortunate to have snagged this mid-Century rambler gem, for after our application, there were half a dozen others who applied too late.
We secured our new home where we want to live roughly 48 hours after I first saw the listing.
That's just how quick rentals move onto and off the rental market here.