Study: Everett’s new apartments are the biggest in the nation

Looking for a new apartment with more space? You may want to start your search in Everett.

Matthew Niksa | June 11, 2021

The biggest units under construction in the country can be found there, according to a new study from RentCafe, an apartment listing site.

There are a number of reasons why Everett is seeing such big apartments. One has to do with demand, said Doug Ressler, a senior analyst at Yardi Matrix, a sister company of RentCafe that collected data for the study.

Older millennials with families “would like larger floor plans,” Ressler said.

New apartments being built in Everett offer an average of 1,195 square feet, according to the report. Compared with those completed in the city from 2016 to 2020, those new dwellings offer 29% more room, the study found.

Remote work may be leading to bigger units

There are indications that the upsizing of apartments may become a national trend. The Covid-19 pandemic forced many companies to allow their employees to work from home. As the epidemic wanes, many plan to allow employees to continue to work remotely, at least part-time. That’s likely spurring demand for bigger homes, to make room for more workspace there, according to the report.

Out of the 92 U.S. cities RentCafe scrutinized for its report, 33, or 36%, are seeing larger apartments being built than were constructed in the past five years, the study found. On average, those under-construction apartments offer 48 more square feet than their predecessors — just enough room for a small home office, according to the study.

The study excluded cities with only one apartment building under construction or with fewer than 300 units being built.

In Everett, the apartments under construction offer an average of 267 more square feet than those completed from 2016 to 2020. That’s the largest increase in square footage among the cities RentCafe studied. Three other Puget Sound-area cities joined Everett on the top-20 list: Kirkland (211 more square feet, ranking second), Auburn (87 more square feet, ranking 11th) and Redmond (34 more square feet, ranking 19th).

Kirkland and Auburn were also singled out in the study as cities where apartments had been getting smaller over the last half of the 2010s before “taking a U-turn,” with developers now building larger units.

Source: Puget Sound Business Journal