Safe and Cheaper 'hoods (Seattle, Tacoma: apartments, rental, crime rate)

[coldinsomniac]

Looks like this may be a semi common type of thread, but here's my take on the question:

Our Fremont area rent just doubled after a few years of pretending like we were safe on a month to month agreement, and that the crazy rents wouldn't affect us. So my husband, toddler and pooch need a new place to live now and looks like we're being pushed to Kent/Lynnwood areas by price. I think I'm familiar enough with Lynnwood, but are all these new, big apt complexes in Kent in safe areas? We drove through the area and things felt safe and fine but I hear that Kent is not so good. I do hate apartments.

Ideally we'd like to rent a townhome, duplex or house, and the only places closer to downtown than Tacoma/Everett that we can afford seem to be Beacon Hill, Rainier beach areas, MLK areas, Burien, Tukwila and the like. If I google dangerous areas or crime rates it looks like I should avoid these areas, but there's got to be good areas in some of them? We don't want to sign a lease and then realize we're in a bad area. I know I'm going to avoid Seatac and probably White Center.

Obviously we just want our family to be safe, and not have my husband have to take the bus longer than an hour to work.

Help?

[tobester]

What's you budget? What's your commute?

[Hemlock140]

While there are no real unsafe areas in the greater Seattle region that could compare to some other cities, the fact is that the price of rent is greatly affected by the crime rate (safety) in addition to commute times to major job centers, and good schools. When affordability becomes an issue, some compromise has to be made. Cities like Kent, Lynnwood, Auburn, and parts of Seattle such as Beacon Hill and Rainier Beach are mixed, with some areas better than others, so attention must be paid to specific neighborhoods to find those to avoid. One co-worker found a great rental house in what he thought was a safe area in lower Beacon Hill, but was burglarized twice within the first 6 months before it was sold and he had to move.
I work near downtown in Seattle and I see people taking the bus to work from as far away as Snoqualmie/North Bend, Maple Valley, Lakewood, Tacoma, even Gig Harbor. Some co-workers take the ferry from Bremerton, Bainbridge Island, or Silverdale. There are many sites with detailed maps of crime, including City Data, and often the local police website also has crime data.

Examples:

//www.city-data.com/crime/crime...ashington.html

//www.city-data.com/crime/crime...ashington.html