One way to afford a house in pricey Seattle: Share it with others

Three roommates sharing a meal at their home.

There’s nothing unusual about that, except Bryce Richards – one of the three young guys I met in this West Seattle townhouse the other day – is the landlord. The other two, Matt Pasik and Michael Cullen, rent rooms for $850 each in Richards’ home.

And you may ask, how did a 30-year-old become a live-in landlord? It has something to do with Seattle’s increasingly unaffordable rental market.

Richards, a senior project manager at an engineering firm in SODO, relocated from the Tri-Cities to Seattle in December 2015. He first shared a $2,100-a-month, two-bedroom with his sister in Queen Anne, but when the landlord announced a $600 increase, Richards decided to try to buy a house, even if that meant subletting rooms.

“I thought, I gotta jump in and buy, otherwise I’m going to get priced out,” Richards said.

After months searching, Richards found a property he could afford, not far from his job in SODO: A $380,000 townhouse in the Delridge area of West Seattle.

Finding tenants to rent two of the four bedrooms in the three-story home wasn’t hard.

Judging by the camaraderie I witnessed over dinner, I’d say this living arrangement seems to be working well for everyone involved.