Downtown Bellevue Condos---The Choice of Young and Affluent
In the 1950’s this city across Lake Washington was full of farm lands and massive single family homes. For long it did not have any independent identity of its own; it used to be considered nothing but one of the Seattle suburbs. But since 1990’s the things started changing. It was the time, when the city of Bellevue got its first set of condos. The first lot of Bellevue condos found buyers mainly in the cash-rich middle aged professionals, planning for their retirement, or the empty nesters who moved in to these hassle-free, compact accommodations.
In the initial years, Bellevue condos were out of the reach of the young crowd and only the cash-rich buyers could afford these premium properties. The tech boom and advent of internet has changed everything; now it is not uncommon to find multi-millionaires in their late twenties and early thirties. Today, these young professionals in their early thirties are the main buyers of new Bellevue condos. So what lure these gen-X buyers in investing in such high value properties?
With so many big corporate houses, including Microsoft, Yahoo and Expedia opening their wings in Bellevue, the city is slowly but steadily shaking off her previous non-glamorous, sleepy, small town image. With happening restaurants, night clubs and malls lining up the eastside of the city, downtown Bellevue has easily become the choice of young crowd, who always want to be where all activities are. In the recent years, there has been a flow in the population of this area and majority of them are the young and successful professionals in their 20’s and 30,s, who are employed with big companies.
According to an estimate, the city’s population is expected to touch 14,000 marks by 2020. Majority of this huge population is going to set up their homes in the cities over 5000 condos. About 3,500 Bellevue condos are currently occupied by the residents; some 2000 units are on the card. With this we can safely conclude that once a sleepy city called Bellevue is now on her way to give a tough competition to the twin city of Seattle in its new condo explosion. No wonder, Diana Canzoneri, one of the city’s lead demographers predicts that with the increase in the number of tech jobs, more young buyers are expected to invest in downtown Bellevue condos in the upcoming years. And why not, by living in downtown Bellevue condos, not only you are close to all downtown amenities, it actually takes you five to ten minutes to reach the major office buildings in the city center.
However, the downtown Bellevue condos are not an option for the people with low salaries. The city administrators are planning to fill up this gap by introducing affordable home solutions. These affordable Bellevue condos are most likely to come up in the east of the downtown area, in the areas like “Auto Row” area the Bel-Red Corridor. The people currently living in downtown Bellevue condos are apprehensive about the outcome of the project. Their tale on the issue is: over- population may reduce the quality of lifestyle in this part of Bellevue. “Don't let people move downtown. I don’t want it to turn bad,” said a young woman in her thirties, who moved to this part of the city with her husband in search of cleanliness and low crime rate.
